y curved, and,
with the hands, moved several times to the right and left. The gesture
is intended to represent a crab and the tortuous movements of the
crustacean, which are likened to those of a man who cannot be depended
on in his walk through life. He is not straight.

[Illustration: Fig. 101.]

[Illustration: Fig. 102.]

Figs. 102 and 103 are different positions of the hand in which the
approximating thumb and forefinger form a circle. This is the direst
insult that can be given. The amiable canon De Jorio only hints at
its special significance, but it may be evident to persons aware of a
practice disgraceful to Italy. It is very ancient.

[Illustration: Fig. 104.]

[Illustration: Fig. 103.]

Fig. 104 is easily recognized as a request or command to be _silent_,
either on the occasion or on the subject. The mouth, supposed to be
forcibly closed, prevents speaking, and the natural gesture, as might
be supposed, is historically ancient, but the instance, frequently
adduced from the attitude of the god Harpokrates, whose finger is on
his lips, is an error. The Egyptian hieroglyphists, notably in the
designation of Horus, their dawn-god, used the finger in or on the
lips for "child." It has been conjectured in the last instance that
the gesture implied, not the mode of taking nourishment, but inability
to speak--_in-fans_. This conjecture, however, was only made to
explain the blunder of the Greeks, who saw in the hand placed
connected with the mouth in the hieroglyph of Horus (the) son,
"Hor-(p)-chrot," the gesture familiar to themselves of a finger on
the lips to express "silence," and so, mistaking both the name and the
characterization, invented the God of Silence, Harpokrates. A careful
examination of all the linear hieroglyphs given by Champollion
(_Dictionnaire Egyptien_) shows that the finger or the hand to the
mouth of an adult (whose posture is always distinct from that of
a child) is always in connection with the positive ideas of voice,
mouth, speech, writing, eating, drinking, &c., and never with the
negative idea of silence. The special character for _child_, Fig.
105, always has the above-mentioned part of the sign with reference to
nourishment from the breast.

[Illustration: Fig. 105.]

Fig. 106 is a forcible _negation_. The outer ends of the fingers
united in a point under the chin are violently thrust forward. This
is the rejection of an idea or proposition, the same conception being
execut