SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 3.8 



stead of portraying them with legs in range of the eye, so that only 

 two are visible, there are cases in which all four legs are shown. 

 This statement occurred in an article written by him on the mound- 

 builders of Wisconsin, which appeared in the " Proceedings of the 

 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences for 1876-77;" and he furnished 

 illustrations of two such animals which he found on the ^northern 

 shore of Lake, or Fourth Lake, opposite Madison. One of them 

 he considered to represent a deer with divided horns : the other he 

 called a bear. 



Now, this report of his did not go uncontradicted ; for it was 

 maintained some years later by a writer in the American Anti- 

 quarian (vi. p. 13), that "there is in the mound no such divisions 

 in the legs or horns," and the doubt is also expressed " whether any 

 effigy intended to represent a deer ever had the horns separate, as 

 this has." Dr. De Hart does not seem to have written in defence 

 of his position, and no one hitherto seems to have taken up the cud- 

 gels in his behalf. For my part, until last year, I shared equally 

 in the doubts of the second writer, because, in addition to scrutiniz- 

 ing all the drawings of effigies by Mr. Lapham and others contained 

 in the " Antiquities of Wisconsin," together with a few subsequent 

 incidental surveys of similar figures, I had personally examined 

 some hundreds of original effigies in the field, without being able 

 to find a case of divided legs. 



When visiting the Four Lake country last summer, I did not fail 

 to search for, and find, the two effigies delineated by the doctor, 

 which are on the grounds of the insane-asylum. The result of the 

 examination did not entirely confirm his statement ; for, though the 

 "deer's" legs are most decidedly apart, there is no division of the 

 horns into antlers that I could discern. The following descriptions. 



with outline diagrams plotted from my surveys, are now submitted 

 to the archaeological world to substantiate the position taken. 



The deer, so called (No. i), is situated to the right of the road 

 running from the asylum to the lake, and about equidistant from 

 each. Its greatest length from the muzzle to the end of the tail is 

 108.5 fset, and the body is 1.5 feet high. Its horns or ears, which- 

 ever they may be, are divided into two sections, but there is no 



subdii'ision. There are several other effigies and a number of 

 round mounds and embankments belonging to this group, but they 

 are being gradually defaced and worn away by the patients passing 

 back and forth over them in their daily walks. 



On the same occasion I also found another four-legged animal 

 (No. 2) not hitherto mentioned by any one. It is on the north side 

 of Lake Wingra, nearly live miles distant as the crow fiies, in a 

 southerly direction from the one first described. The length of 

 this effigy from the extremity of the muzzle to the rump is 127 feet, 

 its body is 3 feet in height, and the legs are bent as if in motion. 

 Last August, when I made the survey, it was in a fine state of 

 preservation, the base outline being well defined. It is located on 

 a knoll about twenty feet above the lake, less than one hundred 

 feet from the shore ; and on a high ridge above and to the east of 

 it there are numerous round mounds, embankments, and effigies. 



Leaving the vicinity of Madison, a north-westerly course in an 

 air line of about 117 miles by the map brings us to a place where 

 there is annther effigy belonging to the same class (No. 3). It is 

 located on the farm of Mr. George Gale on the N+ of section 10, 

 township 18, range 8, on the west side of Black River, in Trempea- 

 leau County, Wis., within seven miles of the Mississippi River to 

 the south-west. Its length from the muzzle to the tip of the tail, in 

 an air line, is 234 feet, and the body is 2,5 feet in height. In this 

 case, also, the horns, if such they be, are divided. Thefore-legs are 

 bent forward, and the hind-legs backward, which is probably in- 

 tended to convey the idea that the animal is in motion. The tail 

 is 144 feet in length, being just one and a half times that of the 

 body and head combined. In addition to this one, there are four 

 other effigies and several round mounds and embankments belong- 

 ing to the same group, all of which were in a fine state of preserva- 

 tion last November, when my survey was made. 



While these three examples, representing probably very different 

 animals, are entirely unlike each other generally, they are yet fully 

 sufficient to establish a class of four-legged ones ; and probably by 

 continued research others could be found in the same regions. 



It may be further no'ed, in connection with these earthen effi- 

 gies, that occasionally carvings or etchings are found on the sides 

 of rocks and caves in Trempealeau and adjoining counties, which 

 represent a great variety of figures of various kinds, and that 

 among them are found some animals with two and others with 

 four legs. The more interesting specimens of work have been 

 copied by me. Although they may have been carved by another 

 race, yet the fact still remains that both the artists in earth and 

 the artists in stone adopted the same plan of outlines, but among 

 the carvings there is by far the largest proportion of four-legged 

 animals. 



Whether this departure from a supposed rule be symptomatic of 

 any incipient sesthetic evolution or not, and whether such construc- 

 tion of figures with legs apart preceded, was contemporaneous 

 with, or succeeded, the similarly shaped carvings on the rocks, are 

 questions which must be left to the future to answer. 



T. H. Lewis. 



St. Paul, Minn., Feb. 27. 



Queries. 



42. Looking to the Left. — A writer in a recent number of 

 the Albany Argus asks, " Why do theatre-goers prefer seats on 

 the right of the house .' " and suggests that when we are on the 

 street we pass persons to the right and look to the left ; that 

 twenty-five or thirty years of this sort of thing naturally gets one 

 accustomed to it ; and, finally, that if one were to sit for two hours 

 and a half or three hours in one position, if he has to keep his eyes 

 to the right, he will find that it tires the muscles of the eyes quite 

 perceptibly. Is there any evidence that this explanation is well 

 founded .' 



43. Digestion of Fowls. — Permit me to ask a few questions 

 about the digestion of fowls. Do they pick up the little stones 

 when chicks, that serve through life, or do they secrete an acid 

 that gradually digests even the pebbles, or have they a normal con- 

 dition which produces the gravel in their gizzards as it is required 

 for digestion ? S. E. W. 



