foration,
and for the other three fingers by separate grooves. These give a
splendid grip for the hunter, but the extraordinary width of the handle
is certainly a disadvantage. There are two longitudinal grooves on the
upper face; the principal one is squared to receive the rectangular
shaft of the bird spear; the other is chipped out for the tips of the
fingers, which do not reach across to the harpoon shaft, owing to the
clumsy width of the throwing-stick. In this example, the hook for the
end of the bird-spear shaft is the canine tooth of some animal driven
into the wood at the distal end of the long-shaft groove.

FURY AND HECLA STRAITS TYPE.

In Parry's Second Voyage (p. 508) is described a throwing-stick of
Igloolik, 18 inches long, grooved for the shaft of the bird-spear, and
having a spike for the hole of the shaft, and a groove for the thumb and
for the fingers. The index-finger hole is not mentioned, but more than
probably it existed, since it is nowhere else wanting between Ungava and
Cape Romanzoff in Alaska. This form, if properly described by Parry, is
between the Ungava and the Cumberland Gulf specimen, having no kinship
with the throwing-stick of Greenland. The National Museum should possess
an example of throwing-stick from the Fury and Hecla Straits.

ANDERSON RIVER TYPE.

The Anderson River throwing-stick (and we should include the Mackenzie
River district) is a very primitive affair in the National Museum, being
only a tapering flat stick of hard wood (Fig. 5). Marks 2, 3, 4, 5, and
6 are wanting. The index-finger cavity is large and eccentric and
furnishes a firm hold. The shaft-groove is a rambling shallow slit, not
over half an inch wide. There is no hook or spur of foreign material
inserted for the spear end; but simply an excavation of the hard wood
which furnishes an edge to catch a notch in the end of the dart. Only
one specimen has been collected from this area for the National Museum;
therefore it is unsafe to make it typical, but the form is so unique
that it is well to notice that the throwing-stick in Eskimoland has its
simplest form in the center and not in the extremities of its whole
area. It is as yet unsafe to speculate concerning the origin of this
implement. A rude form is as likely to be a degenerate son as to be the
relic of a barbaric ancestry. Among the theories of origin respecting
the Eskimo, that which claims for them a more southern habitat long ago
is of great forc