April 15, 1887.] 107 : [ Hancock. 
convex base, which required suspension when in use, for which ears pro- 
jecting from the rim were provided; and where these did not exist the pot 
had to be supported when resting upon the earth. Iam not aware of the 
existence of any vessel from this locality having a flat bottom. 
In the rude and heavy vessels no deviation was made from the plain 
lines of the gourd, but in the finer examples the monotony of this form 
was relieved by flaring or contracting the lips, and in constructing double 
shoulders. 
In some instances the inside, as well as the exterior, was colored a 
bright red, as if to conceal the inequalities of their rough surfaces, but 
there is no record of the discovery within the district under consideration 
of a pot ornamented with colored designs. 
Nor are there specimens, so far asI can learn, from the Middle and New 
England States of bottle-shaped or long necked vases, so frequently met 
with among the mound relics, and in some sections of the South; and no 
attempt was made to imitate the human form, or that of birds and ani- 
mals. The nearest approach thereto, as I have learned from Dr. Rau, are 
little grotesque human heads or masks stuck on the outside of the vessels 
below the corners of the rims. A number of fragments thus decorated, 
which were collected in the State of New York by Mr. F. H. Cushing, are 
in the National Museum at Washington. 
When we consider the difficulties under which these ancient potters 
wrought their crude materials, the absence of mechanical appliances (un- 
aided by the petter’s wheel), their complete ignorance of the first rudi- 
ments of artistic knowledge, following only such lines as fancy dictated, 
we cannot but express amazement at the accura cy of the workmanship 
and the originality, if not the beauty, of the designs. 
It was not the beauty of the trained Grecian or Etruscan schools, but 
the naturally developed taste of the aboriginee, who sought nature for her 
models, and found them in the gourd and melon. 
Description of Datames magna Hancock. By Joseph L. Hancock. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, April 15, 1887.) 
Length 46 mm. (including mandibles); abdomen 244 mm.; thorax 
4mm.; head 7mm. Breadth, abdomen 9mm.; head 10} mm. ; jaws 
103 mm. 
Color pale reddish yellowish white, more reddish on head, falces and 
tips of last joints of legs ; paler on abdomen, legs and labial palpi. Last 
joint (tarsus) of maxillary palpi and longitudinal marking under surface 
of tibia of the same member, deep brownish-black, fingers of mandibles 
burnished chestnut-brown, becoming black at points ; margin of bristly 
hairs surrounding base of fingers, reddish-brown. 
Cephalic Shield convexed, broader than long, anterior margin nearly 
Straight, outer fourth sloping obliquely outwards and backwards to pos- 
sr 
