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Show 28 INSTANCES OF PREVALENT SIGNS. bases of the left- hand fingers) and draw them downward, still closed, until it is entirely drawn away. This sign seems to represent the act of smoothing down the fusiform tuft at the end of the animal's tail. ( Matthews.) White- tailed deer [ Cariacus virginianus macrurus ( Raf.), Coues]. Hold the right hand upright before the chest, all fingers but the index being bent, the palm being turned as much to the front as possible. Then wag the hand from side to side a few times rather slowly. The arm is moved scarcely, or not at all. This sign represents the motion of the deer's tail. ( MattJiews.) For dog, one of the signs gives the two forefingers slightly opened, drawn horizontally across the breast from right to left. ( Burton.) This would not be intelligible without knowledge of the fact that before the introduction of the horse, and even yet, the dog has been used to draw the tent- poles in moving camp, and the sign represents the trail. Indians less nomadic, who built more substantial lodges, and to whom the material for poles was less precious than on the plains, would not perhaps have comprehended this sign, and the more general one is the palm lowered as if to stroke gently in a line conforming to the animal's head and neck. It is abbreviated by simply lowering the hand to the usual height of the wolfish aboriginal breed ( Wied; Titchkemdtski), and suggests the animal par excellence domesticated by the Indians and made a companion. The French and American deaf- mutes more specifically express the dog by snapping the fingers and then patting the thigh, or by patting the knee and imitating barking with the lips. INSTANCES OF PEEVALENT SIGNS. Among the signs that are found generally current and nearly identical may be noted that for horse, made by the fore and middle finger of the right hand placed by some astraddle of the left forefinger and by others of the edge of the left hand, the animal being considered at first as only serviceable for riding and not for draft. Colonel DODGE mentions, however, that these signs are used only by Indians to white men, their ordinary sign for horse being made by drawing the right hand from left to right across the body about the heart, all the fingers being closed excepting the index. It |