ch to hang a theory so
far-reaching in its consequences.

Nor was it necessary to go as far as Guiana and Brazil to find instances
of the domestication of wild fowl by aborigines. Among our North
American Indians it was a by no means uncommon practice to capture and
tame birds. Roger Williams, for instance, speaks of the New England
Indians keeping tame hawks about their dwellings "to keep the little
birds from their corn." (Williams's Key into the Language of America,
1643, p. 220.) The Zunis and other Pueblo Indians keep, and have kept
from time immemorial, great numbers of eagles and hawks of every
obtainable species, as also turkies, for the sake of the feathers. The
Dakotas and other western tribes keep eagles for the same purpose. They
also tame crows, which are fed from the hand, as well as hawks and
magpies. A case nearer in point is a reference in Lawson to the
Congarees of North Carolina. He says, "they are kind and affable, and
tame the cranes and storks of their savannas." (Lawson's History of
Carolina, p. 51.) And again (p. 53) "these Congarees have an abundance
of storks and cranes in their savannas. They take them before they can
fly, and breed them as tame and familiar as a dung-hill fowl. They had a
tame crane at one of these cabins that was scarcely less than six feet
in height."

So that even if the bird, as has been assumed by many writers, be
feeding from a human hand, of which fact there is no sufficient
evidence, we are by no means on this account driven to the conclusion,
as appears to have been believed, that the sculpture could be no other
than a toucan.

As in the Cass of the manatee, it has been thought well to introduce a
correct drawing of a toucan in order to afford opportunity for
comparison of this very striking bird with its supposed representations
from the mounds. For this purpose the most northern representative of
the family has been selected as the one nearest the home of the
Mound-Builders.

The particulars wherein it differs from the supposed toucans are so many
and striking that it will be superfluous to dwell upon them in detail.
They will be obvious at a glance.

Thus we have seen that the sculptured representation of three birds,
totally dissimilar from each other, and not only not resembling the
toucan, but conveying no conceivable hint of that very marked bird,
formed the basis of Squier and Davis' speculations as to the presence of
the toucan in the mounds. These th