2o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



accepted, ear ]nerciiig among them was heathenism. Whether 

 this is so or not, it is certain that the descendants of Ishmael were 

 in covenant with such a god. 



Judges, viii, 24, 25 : " And Gideon said unto them, I would 

 desire a request of you, that you shouhl give me every man the 

 ear-rings of his prey. For they had gohlen ear-rings, hecause they 

 were Ishmaelites. And they answered. We will willingly give 

 them. And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every 

 man the ear-rings of his prey." And the suggestion of the same 

 thing is very strong in Genesis, xxxv, 4 : " And they gave unto 

 Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all 

 their ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them 

 under the oak which was by Shechem." 



This sign of covenant with some other god than Jehovah crept 

 at an early day, like so many other customs of heathenism, into 

 the Christian Church. It has gradually disappeared. Lippert 

 says that in the early Church it was customary to have the ears 

 pierced, at the same time invoking the protection of saints against 

 disease. Gradually this dwindled to invocation of a single saint's 

 assistance against a single class of diseases — those of the eye. A 

 remnant of this still lingers among those people who, in our own 

 day and land, claim that they pierce their ears to help their eye- 

 sight. Such persons present us the last picture in a series the 

 first of which is a savage man, whose ears are pierced merely to 

 shed blood for the gratification of a deity whose aid he desires to 

 secure. 



We have thus considered a large number of curious and inter- 

 esting points regarding dress and adornment. We have seen how 

 the curious deformations so widely practiced have arisen, and 

 how they are useful. We have queried as to the motives which 

 have led to dress development and its results. We have emj^ha- 

 sized the influence that the desire for adornment has exercised 

 upon man's progress. We have lastly shown how a large number 

 of articles of dress and ornament have come to have a religious 

 significance, and how many other deformaticms have begun in 

 connection with acts of worship. 



The remains of an extinct species of swan are describeil by Mr. II. O. Forbes, 

 Director of tlie Canterbury Museum, New Zealand, as having been found in a 

 newly discovered cave near Christchiirch. Moa bones, with Maori relics — includ- 

 ing implements, carvings, a lock of hnir carefully done up, and other hair— were 

 found so associated as to "show incontestably " that the Maori and nioa were con- 

 temporaneous. Remains of various animals and other birds than the moa, which 

 had been used for food, were found, but no human bones. Some of the birds a]ipear 

 to have been of species now extinct in New Zealand, and not elsewhere described. 



