58 
is a short section of a rib, pointed at each end, with a hole near the middle. 
Eighteen others are made from curved, split pieces of ribs; nine being 
derived from the dorsal-caudal or outer side and the others from the 
ventral-cephalic or inner side of the bone. 
Twenty of these needles, especially those derived from ribs, are curved 
from end to end, one extremely so, whereas those made of thick pieces of 
bone are all more or less straight or flattened, in which respect they 
are like some of the needles used by modern Indians. The curved needles 
may have had a special advantage over the straight ones, because they could 
more readily be passed in and out among the meshes; in some cases, how- 
ever, the curvature may be due to warping. 
Most of the needles are widest near the middle, and the tips of all but 
a few are more or less obtusely pointed, probably so that they could be used 
either backward or forward; most of the modern specimens also have both 
ends obtusely pointed. They are from inch to § inch wide, range in 
length from 3 \ to 5 T V inches, and are from to | inch thick. 
The eyes were made through the widest part of the needles, twenty - 
one specimens having oval eyes and two round. Most of them were made 
by gouging rather than drilling. The oval eyes in about half the specimens 
have the ends of the hole grooved, as in the eyes of modern steel needles 
and in that of Eskimo and Naskapi specimens (Turner, Figure 130). The 
oval eyes are from to ^ inch long nnd from ^ to J inch wide, and the 
round ones are inch in diameter. The eye in one specimen (Cat. No. 
VIII-F-10884) is only about £ inch long and about ^ inch wide, admittedly 
not large enough to hold even the finest snow-shoe line. Five specimens 
were reperforated after they became broken. Seven of the needles have 
the eye nearer one end than the other. This is also the case in many of 
the needles from Iroquoian sites elsewhere in Ontario and in New York. 
The placing of the eye nearer one end than the other in our specimens 
appears to have been intentional, the shortest end, perhaps, being held 
between the fingers as the needle was passed in and out among the meshes; 
yet if this were so, we would expect the short end to be much more polished 
from use than the longer end, which is not the case. 
Only eight specimens show signs of wearing in the hole, the one in 
the specimen illustrated probably more than the others, the wearing occur- 
ring at the end farthest from the longer part of the needle in four speci- 
mens and at the end nearest the longest part of the needle on another. 
Although these implements are generally called needles, their width 
would preclude such a use, at least in the sense generally understood. 
Similar needles are used by the Eskimo, Naskapi, Montagnais, Malecite, 
and Penobscot in forming the netting of snow-shoes, and our specimens 
were probably used for the same purpose. It is possible, however, that 
those in which the eyes are too small to admit a snow-shoe thong may 
have been used in some fine textile work. 
Their comparative scarcity here, and the fact that they are also scarce 
at other Iroquoian sites in Ontario and New York, would suggest that 
they were not extensively used. If used as snow-shoe netting needles, their 
occurrence would probably coincide with the known geographical distribu- 
