996 The American Naturalist. [November, 
veritable Indian productions. The occurrence of old and new 
together is what might be expected. There is an almost invol- 
untary tendency to add one’s name to a wall where others have 
placed theirs. Many examples of this might be mentioned ; for 
instance, Inscription Rock, on the road from Acoma to Zufi 
Pueblo, New Mexico, bears side by side Indian pictographs, an- 
cient and modern, and the names and dates of visits of travelers, 
from the end of the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The 
fact, therefore, that there are some modern pictographs associated 
with the one we are considering does not mean that it also is 
modern. While the style of the dress might suggest modern 
times after association with the whites, the remainder of the 
pictograph has an ancient look which is suggestive. 
While it must be confessed that the explanation of these head- 
dresses proposed in the following lines is conjectural, there is evi- 
dence which seems to support it. Evidently these pictographs 
represent some costume with which the maker was familiar, and 
can hardly be called fanciful. A pictograph of an Indian with a 
gun, or a ship with sails, both of which are represented in the 
collection, affords inherent evidence of the modern origin of the 
pictograph. It would seem, if the same were not true of un- 
doubtedly ancient pictographs, that the form of the dress of the 
figure represented in the cut recalled the skirt of the white 
woman, yet the general character of the pictograph indicates its 
age, as ancient pictographs with the same form are not unknown. 
If an ancient pictograph, the form represented in the head-dress 
must have been a familiar one to the graver. Analogy with 
other pictographs of known significance, rather than exact 
knowledge, would lead me to interpret this as a mask or head- 
dress worn in the dance or on festal or religious occasions. 
I have seen at the Indian settlement at Pleasant Point a head- 
dress ornamented with feathers, which is kept as a curiosity of the 
olden time ; and it is known that in olden time our New England 
Indians wore such ornaments. Yet I am familiar with but few 
representations of pictographs of head-dressed ornamented with 
feathers which are as elaborately delineated as those cut on the 
rocks of Nova Scotia, of which a cut is here reproduced. 
