tN 
“J 

The account of the tattooing ceremony among the 
Osage tribe (Fig. 2), by Mr. F. ua Flesche, is note- 
worthy. Formerly the honour was restricted to warriors 
distinguished in a campaign. Now, as they have gained 
wealth, it has become a means by which any pe rson 
can publicly display his affection towards a relative. 
Mr. V. Stefansson contributes to Museum Bulletin 
No. 6 of the Department of Mines, Canada, a paper 
on prehistoric and, present commerce among the 
Arctic coast Eskimo. This was, as might have been 
anticipated, usually conducted by sea. The main 
route ran along the coast from Mackenzie Bay on 
the east to King William Island on the west, diverg- 
Bureau of American Ethnology. 
Fic. 2,—An Osage Indian with tattooing. 
ing to the north through Victoria Island, and reaching 
south as far as Great Bear Lake on the west and to 
Thelon River and Chesterfield Inlet on the west. He 
finds a certain tribal specialisation of industries and 
some division of labour resulting from the varied 
natural resources of this wide area. But each tribe 
believes the articles made by its members to be 
superior to those of neighbouring tribes. Though the 
people are very conservative, there is a constant inter- 
che ange of manufactures between distant districts, and 
with ‘this arises a commerce of ideas which are readily 
assimilated with the indigenous beliefs and practices. 
NO. 2375, VOL. 95] 

NATURE 


{May 6, 1915 

RECENT WORK ON VERTEBRATE 
PALZONTOLOGY. 
NDER the direction of Prof. H. F. Osborn a 
number of expeditions have been dispatched from 
the American Museum of Natural History to collect 
the mammalian faunas of the Lower Eocene Wasatch 
and Wind River beds of W yoming, and the collection 
of such remains in that institution is consequently very 
large, especially as it includes the extensive series 
brought together by Prof. Cope, which was purchased 
in 1895. The stratigraphical observations made during 
these expeditions and the. careful record of the exact 
horizon of each fossil have ren- 
dered it practicable to correlate 
the various faunas, and to trace 
out the- evolution of the different 
species and groups in a manner 
which- was previously impossible. 
With the object of putting these 
new facts before the scientific 
public, Messrs. Matthew and 
Grainger have undertaken a re- 
vision- of our knowledge’ of these 
faunas, the first portion of which 
appears as vol. Xxxiv., art. 4 
(pp. 1-103), of the Bulletin of the 
American Museum of Natural 
History.- This, which is by Dr. 
Matthew alone, treats of the 
creodont Carnivora, seven fami- 
lies of which -are represented in 
these formations, and of which 
three genera and a large number 
of species are described as new. 
Quarto Bulletin No. 89 of the 
U.S. National Museum is devoted 
to the first portion of a descrip- 
tive account of the osteology of 
the armoured dinosaurs, with 
special reference to the genus 
Stegosaurus, by Mr. C. W. Gil- 
more. The memoir, which in- 
cludes 136 quarto pages and 
thirty-six plates, is dated Decem- 
ber 31, 1914, but copies did not 
reach this country until the latter 
part of the following March; it is 
based almost exclusively on speci- 
mens in the collection of . the 
National Museum, and gives the 
first detailed description of the 
entire osteology of Stegosaurus. 
The material includes considerable 
portions of the skeletons of several 
individuals, among which the one 
most nearly approaching complete- 
ness, and which alone exhibits the 

armour, is the type of S. stereops. 
‘With few exceptions, the entire 
series of stegosaurian remains 
were obtained from two quarries, 
situated respectively in Albany County, Wyoming 
and Fremont County, Colorado. 
Nine species of the genus—all American—are at 
present provisionally recognised, the European forms 
described by Owen as Omestmiae being regarded as 
generically ‘distinct, under the name of Dacentrurus, 
the original designation being pre-occupied. In some 
of the later restorations of Stegosaurus the double 
series of upstanding dorsal plates were ranged alter- 
nately, and the number of pairs of spines on the tail 
reduced from four to two; in the latest restoration, 
however, there is a return to the paired arrangement 

true arrangement of the dermal. 
