_ May 17, 1901.] 
at all, particularly in places where either 
sharks or otters occur. 
It is not claimed that sea lions in their 
native element never eat fish ; at the same 
time the only actual evidence we have on 
the subject fails utterly to substantiate the 
allegations of the fishermen. On the con- 
trary, all of the twenty-five stomachs of 
sea lions examined by Professor Dyche con- 
tained remains of squids or cuttle fishes, 
and not one contained so much as the scale 
or bone of a fish. And is it not significant 
that in former years, when sea lions were 
much more plentiful than now, salmon also 
were vastly more abundant? If the fish- 
ermen will look into their own habits and 
customs during the past twenty-five years, 
it is believed that the cause of decrease of 
the salmon will not be difficult to find, 
and this without charging the decrease to 
the inoffensive sea lions, whose rookeries 
constitute one of the greatest attractions to 
the visitor on the California coast. 
C. Hart Merriam. 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
The Seri Indians. By W J McGrr. Extract 
from the Seventeenth Annual Report of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, 
Government Printing Office, 1898 [1901]. Pp. 
344, with 62 plates, and 42 figures in the text. 
Seldom has one to chronicle the appearance 
of a work so thoroughly ‘a contribution to hu- 
man knowledge’ as is this modestly titled 
essay. Brinton, in his ‘American Race’ (N. Y., 
1891), styles the Seris ‘a Yuma folk,’ and con- 
secrates a few lines to the enumeration of their 
not very prepossessing characteristics. Indeed, 
although these Indians came into contact with 
the whites in 1530-1540, they remained till 
towards the close of the nineteenth century 
perhaps the least studied of all the North 
American aborigines. The expeditions sent out 
in 1894 and 1895 by the Bureau of American 
Ethnology, under the efficient leadership of Dr. 
McGee, have resulted in the shedding of a flood 
of light upon one of the most interesting and 
SCIENCE. 
UUs) 
remarkable groups of savages on the globe. 
After a brief introduction dealing with the 
salient features of the people, geographical no- 
menclature, ete., come sections on habitat (pp. 
22-50), summary history (pp.51-122) ; tribal 
features—nomenclature, external relations, 
population (pp. 123-135) ; somatic characters— 
stature, color, etc., skull, skeleton, pedestrian 
habit, fleetness and endurance, absence of ‘ knife 
sense,’ race sense, cheirization, alternation of 
states (pp. 186-163) ; demotic characters—sym- 
bolism and decoration, industries and industrial 
products, social organization, language (pp. 
164-344). Throughout these pages one is made 
aware of that noteworthy combination of keen- 
ness of perception and aptness of expression, 
that harmonious unity of the explorer and the 
recorder, which make the author’s anthropo- 
logical publications rank with the most sugges- 
tive and most stimulating scientific literature of 
the day. 
The Seris (the word is Opata and means 
‘spry’), or, as they call themselves (by a name 
including fire and the? animal world) K” kdak, 
‘ our-great-mother-folk-here,’ inhabit Tiburon 
Island (some 30 miles in length by from 12 to 
20 in width) in the Gulf of California, and a 
limited adjacent area on the mainland of the 
Mexican State of Sonora. Two centuries ago 
they are said to have numbered several thou- 
sands, but almost uninterrupted warfare has re- 
duced them to some 350, of whom not more 
than 75 are adult males or warriors; and, not- 
withstanding the fact that, under the renewed 
isolation of the last decade or two, they seem 
to have rallied their strength a little, or at 
least to have held their own, Dr. McGee holds 
out to us no other prospect than the ‘ early ex- 
tinction of one of the most strongly marked and 
distinctive of aboriginal tribes.’ In the his- 
torical summary the chief events in the contact 
of Caucasians and Seris, with their terrible re- 
sults, in so far as the latter are concerned, are 
outlined, the concessions (now reported) of Seri 
territory to American speculators may be the 
beginning of the end. If so, the Seris will not 
have passed away without meeting an able and 
sympathetic chronicler. The importance of 
Dr. McGee’s monograph for those engaged in 
the study of the phenomena of heredity and 
’ 
