HINTS AND EXPLANATIONS. 25 
Hunting and fishing gave the Indians a great variety of animal foods. 
Turtles, lizards, snakes, and many insects were eaten; in the arid regions 
of America grasshoppers furnished a staple article of diet. 
Vegetable and animal foods were prepared in various ways. Seeds 
were roasted and ground into meal; insects were usually treated in like 
manner, and various stews, mushes, and breads were made. 
The student will find this an interesting theme for investigation, and 
he will find names for a variety of food materials and dishes. 
§ 7.—COLORS. 
Many other distinctions of color than those given in the list may be 
observed, and many arrangements of color noticed, as in spots, stripes, 
checks, &e., all of which should be recorded. 
Intermediate tints should be asked for, and frequently it will be found 
that words used for designating such are compounds of names understood 
by the Indians to indicate distinct colors. Thus, in the Ute language, 
din-kar is red, té-kar is black, and brown is dn-to-kar. 
§ 8 NUMERALS. 
Any intelligent Indian can easily count a hundred, and repeat this for 
as many hundreds as may be desired. When counting abstractly a common 
termination for the numeral will sometimes be used, signifying i count, im 
number, or something equivalent. If set to count a series of objects, he may 
repeat the name of the object each time. No difficulty will be experienced 
in obtaining the cardinal numbers, but much patience is required to obtain 
the ordinals and other categories of numbers. 
In some Indian languages there is more than one set of cardinal num- 
bers. Animate objects may be counted with one set, inanimate with 
another. They may have a particular set for counting fish, or for counting 
skins; perhaps a set for counting standing objects, and another set for count- 
ing sitting objects, &c. When these different sets are used the words may 
simply have different terminations, or other incorporated particles, or the 
different sets may be composed of very distinct words. Occasionally an 
extra set of numerals may be found, the name of each number being a long 
phrase or sentence descriptive of the method of counting by fingers and toes. 
