CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE NW. FLORIDA COAST. 139 



These bird-symbols are sometimes found on ^•essels apparently having no connection 

 with bird forms, though they may indicate some connection with the bird. On the 

 other hand, as Professor Holmes has shown, the aborigines were not always consist- 

 ent and the bird symbol at times may have degenerated into an ornament. At all 

 events, the symbols we have described belong normally to the bird. 



Fig. 16. — Handle of vessel. Mound near West Bay P. 0. (Eight-ninths size.) 



Vessel No. 16 is a graceful vessel of about 2 quarts capacity found in small 

 fragments and partly restored. Seemingly, the decoration, incised and punctate, is 



not uniform. This vessel, made up 

 of four lobes, is shown in Fig. 15. 



Figs. 10, 17, 18, 19 represent 

 four bird-head handles from this 

 mound. 



On the base, in the central part 

 of the mound, sometimes together in 

 twos and threes, apart from burials, 

 were sixteen vessels of ordinary type 

 and inferior ware. Some were un- 

 decorated ; some had an indistinct, 

 complicated stamp ; a few had scalloped margins. X\\ had the basal perforation 

 which we believe, without exception, Avas the case with the vessels of this mound. 



Fig. 17. — Handle of vessel. Mound near West Bay P. 0. 

 (Eight-ninths size.) 



