ia 
6 Curious Aboriginal Customs. [January, 
in Gladiolus, Penstemon, Labiate, etc., there are many flowers on 
the same root at the same time, presenting the various stages of 
advancement. The chances are strongly in favor, therefore, of 
their being fertilized by pollen from flowers on the same root. In 
the Iris, notwithstanding its elaborate structure to secure cross- 
fertilization, it is quite probable that a particular pistil will be fer- 
tilized by the pollen from a stigma of the same flower. 
While, therefore, we may admit that these contrivances may be 
to render a little more frequent the transfer of pollen to ovules 
on different plants, yet it impresses the thought upon us that each 
flower (and in the Iris each ¢hird of what is commonly called a 
flower) is a distinct vegetable unit. Therefore separate plants, 
as they are commonly called, like their marine mimics, the Hy- 
droids, would be colonies, composed of hundreds or even thou- 
sands of phytons. 
One more lesson, which we find given in the following admira- 
ble words of Prof. Gray: 
“ Now, no matter whether or not the flowers themselves, with all 
these structures, have been perfected step by step, through no 
matter how longa series of natural stages—if these structures 
: and their operations, which so strike the mind of the philosopher 
no less than of the common observer, that he cannot avoid call- 
ing them contrivances, do not argue intention, what stronger 
evidence of intention in nature can there anywhere possibly be? 
If they do, such evidences are countless, and almost every blos- 
som brings distinct testimony to the existence and providence of 
a Designer and Ordainer, without whom, we may well believe, 
not merely a sparrow, not even a grain of pollen may fall.” 
:0: 
CURIOUS ABORIGINAL CUSTOMS. 
BY W. J. HOFFMAN, M.D. 
(NNE of the most singular and wide-spread customs practiced 
\ by the aborigines of North America, was that of cutting off 
the nose of the woman found guilty of adultery. In a previous 
article in the NATURALIsT,! several tribes were referred to as hav- 
ing practiced this mode of mutilation—one or two of them to 
_ within recent times. Since the publication of that paper, I have _ 
_ met with various references upon the same subject, which may . 
be of sufficient interest to enumerate. The earliest notice of the = 
1 Am, Naturalist, xii, 1878, pp. 560-562. 
