138 The American Naturalist. [February, 



described by Professor Morse 1 as existing in fragments of pot- 

 tery, found in the shell heaps of Japan, served the same pur- 

 pose as there, to furnish means of strengthening cracked earth- 

 enware or of joining that already broken. Be this as it may, 

 perforated objects of stone and shell are found which must be 

 considered as charms and amulets, and it is possible that the 

 fragments of bone were put to a similar use. 



But the cranial perforations at least admit of a very differ- 

 ent explanation, if we suppose the skulls to have been buried 

 entire with subsequent separation through pressure of sand or 

 through decay. While perforated crania in Florida are hith- 

 erto unreported, barring hearsay testimony, their discovery is 

 no novelty in Michigan, where numbers have been found in 

 the great mound at Rouge River and others near Detroit. It 

 is presumable that these holes were made more readily to sus- 

 pend the cranium of an enemy, similar perforations, it is 

 stated, being formerly customary among the head-hunting 

 Dyaks of Borneo. For fuller details as to perforated crania 

 the reader is referred to American Antiijaariaa, vol. xii, p. 

 165, and vol. ix, p. 392 ; also to Henry ( lillman's most inter- 

 esting paper in the Smithsonian Report for 1875, p. 2:>5, et seq. 



From the Tick Island mound hundreds of pieces of pott 

 were taken, the great majority rude and unornamented, 

 rest decorated with lines, with crossed lines and with kiK 

 the latter a form unfamiliar to the writer. In no case in l 



