ON THE USE OF FAUNAL LISTS. 277 



Again : In building a heathen temple in the South Seas a man 

 is accidentally killed. It so happens that the building proves 

 " lucky," as we would say. Evidently it is to the death of this 

 man that the good fortune is due. Hence the origin of a fearful 

 custom ! 



Again : Two children were suffering from a wasting disease. One 

 of them happened one day to hold the bridle of a piebald mare. This 

 recovered ; the other died. Clearly, then, the child was cured by the 

 breath of a piebald mare ! 



Seeing that in these cases it was not possible to trace the course of 

 cause and effect, as the persons concerned wei-e without the knowledge 

 requisite, the only logical process available for them is to look for 

 sequent phenomena and assume them to be cause and effect, and the 

 only fault in this logic is that too few cases were taken as a basLs of 

 the theory, i.e. they were too hastily generalised." 



Mr. Thompson, then returning to the immediate subject, gave 

 examples of birds and mammals, shewing how totally wrong would 

 be sweeping generalisations founded on a few instances. He further 

 illustrated this principle by a detailed majj of the peculiar distribii- 

 tion in a small section of Manitoba of the Pipilo er ijthrofthalmuSy 

 and having thus shewn how erroneous would be the statement that 

 the bird is found throughout this region, he pi'oceeded : — 



'' Of course, a common expedient for avoiding the necessit}^ of sO' 

 much care in giving details is the use of the expression "in suitable 

 j)laces " thi'oughout the area treated. I consider the phrase a 

 mi er able evasion. We might as well and truly say of each and 

 every species, dead and alive, "in suitable ])laces throughout the 

 earth ; " for it is very certain that if it is not so found it is because 

 the area was not suitable, either actually, or unsuited through the 

 ])re.sence of stronger competitors, or else not suitably contiguous to 

 the birthplace of the species. 



The simple facts, then, as a.scertained and here shewn, are what I 

 should offer to the puVjlic, accompanying the same with a map of the 

 area in question, without giving any reason for this apparently erratic 

 distribution, except as a matter of opinion — for it will be long before 



