622 MATHEWS-—SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. [Oct. 5, 
American Picumnus, as Parker has already shown, and Parker be- 
lieved that the Prez ‘‘ have a Passerine foundation.” 
I here venture to state that as our knowledge of the morphology 
of Aves becomes more perfect the fact will be appreciated that the 
Pici and the Passeres are divergent groups from a common stock 
in time; and that the former have simply become highly special- 
ized and modified in accordance with their mode of life and 
habits. This common stock Fiirbringer has referred to as the 
“* Pico-Passeriformes,’’ and the root-stock just prior to the diver- 
gence the ‘‘ Pico-Passeres,’’ which latter he again subdivides into 
his families. This also appears to be in keeping with our present 
knowledge of the subject and what osteology of the groups in 
question seems to indicate. 
PHALLIC RITES AND INITIATION ‘CEREMONIES OF 
THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 
BY R. H. MATHEWS, L.S. 
OF PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES. 
(Read October 5, 1900.) 
This paper is intended as a continuation of the one I communi- 
cated to this Society in January last on Devisions of the South 
Australian Aborigines; and the map thereto appended, Plate VI, 
represents the territory within which the rites now described are in 
operation. Exigencies of space render it necessary to treat the 
subject in the briefest possible manner, but it is hoped that each 
part has been described with sufficient fullness to give a consecutive 
account of the proceedings. 
It may, perhaps, be as well to state that I was appointed by the 
Government of South Australia a land surveyor in 1883 and a 
Justice of the Peace in 1884, both of which positions I still hold, 
by which means I have had opportunities which would not other- 
wise have occurred of carrying on my inquiries respecting the cus- 
toms of the aborigines in that colony. 
CIRCUMCISION. 
When a tribe has a few boys old enough to go through this 
ordeal, messengers are dispatched by the head men to several of 
the neighboring tribes to ascertain if they also have some youths 
