Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley - Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 117-166 by Henry W. (Henry Wetherbee) Henshaw
page 27 of 64 (42%)
page 27 of 64 (42%)
|
aware that there was more than one supposed toucan) is not of
sufficient distinctness to identify the original that was before the artist's mind, and it would not be safe, therefore, to make this specimen the subject of far-reaching speculations. [Illustration: Fig. 18.--Keel-Billed Toucan of Southern Mexico (_Rhamphastos carinatus_.)] Further on he adds, "Leaving aside the more than doubtful toucan, the imitated animals belong, without exception, to the North American fauna." Barber, also, after taking exception to the idea that the supposed toucan carving represents a zygodactylous bird, adds in his article on Mound Pipes, pp. 280-281 (American Naturalist for April, 1882), "It may be asserted with a considerable degree of confidence that no representative of an exclusively exotic fauna figured in the pipe sculptures of the Mound-Builders." PAROQUET. The presence of a carving of the paroquet in one of the Ohio mounds has been deemed remarkable on account of the supposed extreme southern habitat of that bird. Thus Squier and Davis remark ("Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," p. 265, Fig. 172), "Among the most spirited and delicately executed specimens of ancient art found in the mounds, is that of the paroquet here presented." "The paroquet is essentially a southern bird, and though common along the Gulf, is of rare occurrence above the Ohio River." The above language would seem to admit of no doubt as to the fact of the decided |
|