HEN6HAW.] GENEKALIZATON NOT DESIGNED. 149 



The views eutertaiued by Dr. Coues as to the resemblances of the 

 carvings will thus be seen to coincide with those expressed above. 

 Another prominent ornithologist, Mr. Eidgway, has also given verbal 

 expression to precisely similar views. 



So far, therefore, as the carvings themselves afford evidenee 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 nec- 

 essary 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 en- 

 tirely wanting, are at best but vaguely defined. The experience of nu- 

 merous investigators attests how difiicult it is, for instance, to obtain 

 from a savage the name of a class of animals in distinction from a par- 

 ticular 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 re- 

 fuses 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 from the fact that the savage's method of classification is differ- 

 ent from that of his questioner. For, although primitive man actually 

 does classify all concrete things into groups, the classification is of a 

 very crude sort, and has for a basis a very different train of ideas from 

 those upon which modern science is established — a fact which many in- 

 vestigators are prone to overlook. Still there seems to be good ground 

 for believing that the conception of a bird, for instance, in the abstract 

 as distinct from some particular kind or species would never be enter- 

 tained by a people no further advanced in culture than their various 

 relics prove the Mound-Builders to have been. In his carving, there- 

 fore, of a hawk, a bear, a heron, or a fish, it seems highly probable that 

 the mound sculptor had in mind a distinct species, as we understand 

 the term. Hence his failure to reproduce specific features in a recog- 

 nizable way is to be attributed to the fact that his skill was inadequate 

 to transfer the exact image present in his mind, and not to his intention 

 to carve out a general representative of the avian class. 



