1881.] Pueblo Pottery. 453 
There are here two kinds of crocodiles, C. ¢etraspes and C. cata- 
phractus ; the latter resembles the East Indian Gavial in size and 
the form of its muzzle, while the former is more like the caiman ; 
I have never heard that any one has here been injured by them, and 
yet both species, in the Camaroon near the Congo, make victims 
of many of the natives. 
A leather-backed turtle, Aspidonectes aspilus, is found here, and 
the waters abound in fish, but they seem to me far inferior to our 
common European species. This may, however, be in part due 
to the very rude manner in which they are prepared for the table. 
Of serpents there exist the following kinds: first, the slender, 
pointed-headed, harmless tree snakes; second, various sorts of 
water snakes, of which the names are unknown to me; third, we 
find here the largest of serpents, the python. Exaggerated re- 
ports of the size, strength and voracity of these snakes are cur- 
rent in the mouths of the people, and even yet in scientific books. 
I have frequently met with them; I even once stepped on the tail 
of a python eighteen feet long, which was lying stretched at full 
length on the ground in the torpor of digestion. To be sure it 
took it in bad part, but fortunately I did not give it time to 
fully declare its intentions, for a hasty shot of my gun laid it 
writhing at my feet. 
:0:—— 
PUEBLO POTTERY. ° 
BY EDWIN A. BARBER. 
ae ancient Pueblos were the only aboriginal people within the 
limits of the United States who possessed the art of glazing 
their pottery. Their descendants, the Pueblo and Moqui In- 
dians of New Mexico and Arizona, are the only tribes which 
manufactured a lustred ware, that remained, until a year or so 
ago, comparatively uninfluenced by civilization. The art may 
have deteriorated in some respects during the past century, yet 
some of the original forms of vessels have been preserved from a 
remote antiquity. Many of the modern productions are almost 
identical in shape with specimens which have been found in 
ancient graves and amongst the ruined buildings in the valleys of 
the Rio San Juan and the Rio Grande del Norte; yet the influ- 
€nce of Caucasian refinement has, to a certain extent, begun to 
Show itself in the imitation of objects of recent introduction, and 
