232 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIV. 
taneous emigration, derived their continuity from periodical visits, 
usually once a year and lasting for a month in the spring, by males 
from other tribes. Columbus, while coasting Haiti (1493), heard 
of such a community from an Indian who visited him on boar 
the Niña. The account was precise; the women of ‘Matinino’ 
admitted annually, as temporary members of their tribe, a certain 
number of male visitors, who carried back with them, on departing, 
the male children born in each interval, the women retaining the girls 
to replenish their own society (Las Casas, Historia, Vol. I, p. 434). 
Later accounts afford a body of evidence strongly tending to prove 
the existence of such societies in the valley of the mighty stream on 
which these communities have indelibly stamped the name of River 
of Amazona. He who summarily rejects these accounts knows little 
of the realities of the transition from savagery to barbarism. Women, 
as the Spaniards.often found to their cost, can use the bow and 
arrow not less effectively than men. In possession of this deadly 
weapon, as well as of the materials of subsistence, they might easily 
form independent communities, and maintain them by the means 
adopted by the South American Amazons for an indefinite period. 
When women, says Southey, have been accustomed to accompany 
their husbands to battle, there is nothing that can be thought 
improbable in their establishing themselves as an independent 
race and thus securing that freedom for their daughters which 
they had obtained for themselves.” 
It is important to notice that one-half at least of the volume treats 
of linguistics. The languages of the American natives are ana- 
lyzed and, as to their mental capacities, compared with those of the 
Old World. 
Some are possessed of highly polysynthetic features, whereas 
others have scarcely attained the lower degrees of agglutination. A 
few of their number may be called analytic, like those of the Maya 
family, but the majority are synthetic. A. S. GATSCHET. 
ZOOLOGY. 
Koelliker’s Reminiscences. — The reminiscences of a long life of 
interesting and worthy activity form the latest volume from Professor 
Koelliker.! The book contains a little over four hundred pages, of 
1 Koelliker, A. Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben. Leipzig, W. Engelmann. 
1899. vi-+ 399 pp. 8 plates, and 1o text-figures. 
