124 ANIMAL CARVINGS. 



Among the more interesting objects left by the Monnd-Builders, pipes 

 occupy a prominent place. This is partly due to their number, pipes 

 being among the more common articles unearthed by the labors of 

 explorers, but more to the fact that in the construction of their pipes 

 this people exhibited their greatest skill in the way of sculpture. In 

 the minds of those who hold that the Mound- Builders were the an- 

 cestors of the present Indians, or, at least, that they were not neces- 

 sarily of a different race, the superiority of their pipe sculpture over 

 their other works of art excites no surprise, since, however, prominent 

 a place the pipe may have held in the affections of the Mound-Builders, 

 it is certain that it has been an object of no less esteem and reverence 

 among the Indians of history. Certainly no one institution, for so it 

 may be called, was more firmly fixed by long usage among the North 

 American Indians, or more characteristic of them, than the pipe, with 

 all its varied uses and significance. 



Perhaps the most characteristic artistic feature displayed in the pipe 

 sculpture of the Mound-Builders, as has been well pointed out by Wilson, 

 in his Prehistoric Man, is the tendency exhibited toward the imitation of 

 natural objects, especially birds and animals, a remark, it may be said in 

 passing, which applies with almost equal truth to the art productions 

 generally of the present Indians throughout the length and breadth of 

 North America. As some of these sculptured animals from the mounds 

 have excited much interest in the minds of archaeologists, and have 

 been made the basis of much speculation, their examination and proper 

 identification becomes a matter of considerable importance. It will 

 therefore be the main purpose of the present paper to examine critically 

 the evidence offered in behalf of the identification of the more important 

 of them. If it shall prove, as is believed to be the case, that serious 

 mistakes of identification have been made, attention will be called to 

 these and the manner pointed out in which certain theories have natu- 

 rally enough resulted from the premises thus erroneously established. 



It may be premised that the writer undertook the examination of the 

 carvings with no theories of his own to propose in place of those hith- 

 erto advanced. In fact, their Qritical examination may almost be said 

 to have been the result of accident. Having made the birds of the 

 United States his study for several years, the writer glanced over the 

 bird carvings in the most cursory manner, being curious to see what 

 species were represented. The inaccurate identification of some of these 

 by the authors of "The Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley" 

 led to the examination of the series as a whole, and subsequently to the 

 discussion they had received at the hands of various authors. The carv- 

 ings are, therefore, here considered rather from the stand-point of the 

 naturalist than the archaeologist. Believing- that the question first in 

 importance concerns their actual resemblances, substantially the same 

 kind of critical study is applied to them which they would receive were 

 they from the hands of a modern zoological artist. Such a course has 



