so frequently the probable case in such matters, I am
inclined to think the sculptor had no particular bird in mind in
executing his rude carving. It is not necessary, or indeed,
permissible, to suppose that particular species were intended to be
represented. Not unfrequently the likeness of some marked bird is
so good as to be unmistakable, but the reverse is oftener the case;
and in the present instance I can make no more of the carving than
you have done, excepting that if any particular species may have
been in the carver's mind, his execution does not suffice for its
determination.

The views entertained by Dr. Coues as to the resemblances of the
carvings will thus be seen to coincide with those expressed above.
Another prominent ornithologist, Mr. Ridgway, has also given verbal
expression to precisely similar views.

So far, therefore, as the carvings themselves afford evidence to the
naturalist, their general likeness entirely accords with the supposition
that they were not intended to be copies of particular species. Many of
the specimens are in fact just about what might be expected when a
workman, with crude ideas of art expression, sat down with intent to
carve out a bird, for instance, without the desire, even if possessed of
the requisite degree of skill, to impress upon the stone the details
necessary to make it the likeness of a particular species.

GENERALIZATION NOT DESIGNED.

While the resemblances of most of the carvings, as indicated above, must
be admitted to be of a general and not of a special character, it does
not follow that their general type was the result of design.

Such an explanation of their general character and resemblances is,
indeed, entirely inconsistent with certain well-known facts regarding
the mental operations of primitive or semi-civilized man. To the mind of
primitive man abstract conceptions of things, while doubtless not
entirely wanting, are at best but vaguely defined. The experience of
numerous investigators attests how difficult it is, for instance, to
obtain from a savage the name of a class of animals in distinction from
a particular species of that class. Thus it is easy to obtain the names
of the several kinds of bears known to a savage, but his mind
obstinately refuses to entertain the idea of a bear genus or class. It
is doubtless true that this difficulty is in no small part due simply to
the confusion arising f