204 Scientific Intelligence — Zoology. 



Holland. It may be, that these nests have been acccounted for in 

 some other way ; but if so, I have seen no other explanation.— 

 American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. xlvii., No. 1, July, 

 1844.— P. 217. 



36. The Human Skull employed as a Drinkinri Vessel. — The skull 

 of an Aboriginal of South Australia, transmitted by Governor Grey 

 as an example of the habit of the tribe to convert that part of the 

 human body into a vessel for holding and carrying water, was ex- 

 hibited by Professor Owen. lie explained the mode in which it had 

 been made applicable to this purpose. After removal of the soft 

 parts of the head and the lower jaw, the bones of the face had been 

 broken away, with the partition and roof of the orbits, and the cranial 

 box was then suspended by a neatly plaited net-rope of threads, 

 made of twisted vegetable fibres, passed through the hole made in 

 the roof of the orbits and through the foramen magnum, this sus- 

 pender being terminated by an ornamental tassel. Leakage by the 

 sutures of the cranium, especially the squamous suture, had been 

 prevented by pitching them over with a native bitumen and cement- 

 ing pieces of the nacreous lining of shells along the course of the 

 sutures. 



The exterior of this specimen of barbarous art was polished, and 

 the processes and other protuberances woi'n smooth by habitual use : 

 the effects of this were most obvious on the external angular pi'o- 

 cesses of the orbits, which seemed to have served as the spouts of the 

 vessel. 



The aborigines of the tribe appear to have practised this art from 

 time immemorial : each Gin or wife possesses and usually fabricates 

 her cranial calabash, with which she fetches the domestic supply of 

 water from the pond or rivci-, and suspends it in the hut or on the 

 branch of an adjoining tree. They have no arts of pottery, and 

 nature has not supplied them with vessels from the vegetable king- 

 dom, like those which the cujete or cocoa-nut furnish to more fa- 

 voured tribes. 



The Scandinavian legends tell of the ancient warriors who quaffed 

 their wine from the skulls of their enemies, but Professor Owen be- 

 lieved the present to be the first instance of the habitual conversion 

 of part of the human skeleton into a drinking vessel. 



37. On the Stature of the Guanches, the extinct Inhabitants of 

 the Canary Islands. — It is well known that prior to the discovery 

 of the Canary Islands by the Spaniards, and their subsequent occu- 

 pation by the Portuguese, these islands were inhabited by a race of 

 men of which not only many curious particulars are recorded, but 

 individual remains of the people themselves are preserved in their 

 mummies, which, at one period, were very numerous. 



By many of the historians who have written of these people, either 

 from personal observation, or so soon after the conquest that au- 

 thentic inlormation muat have been readily accessible to them, the 



