primitive man abstract conceptions of things, while doubtless not
entirely wanting, are at best but vaguely defined. The experience of
numerous investigators attests how difficult it is, for instance, to
obtain from a savage the name of a class of animals in distinction from
a particular species of that class. Thus it is easy to obtain the names
of the several kinds of bears known to a savage, but his mind
obstinately refuses to entertain the idea of a bear genus or class. It
is doubtless true that this difficulty is in no small part due simply to
the confusion arising from the fact that the savage's method of
classification is different from that of his questioner. For, although
primitive man actually does classify all concrete things into groups,
the classification is of a very crude sort, and has for a basis a very
different train of ideas from those upon which modern science is
established--a fact which many investigators are prone to overlook.
Still there seems to be good ground for believing that the conception of
a bird, for instance, in the abstract as distinct from some particular
kind or species would never be entertained by a people no further
advanced in culture than their various relics prove the Mound-Builders
to have been. In his carving, therefore, of a hawk, a bear, a heron, or
a fish, it seems highly probable that the mound sculptor had in mind a
distinct species, as we understand the term. Hence his failure to
reproduce specific features in a recognizable way is to be attributed to
the fact that his skill was inadequate to transfer the exact image
present in his mind, and not to his intention to carve out a general
representative of the avian class.

To carry the imitative idea farther and to suggest, as has been done by
writers, that the carver of the Mound-Building epoch sat down to his
work with the animal or a model of it before him, as does the accurate
zoological artist of our own day, is wholly insupported by evidence