[Illustration: Fig. 265. Fig. 266. Fig. 267. Illustrations of the influence of the shape of spaces upon the delineation of animal forms.] I shall now call attention to some important individualized or well defined agencies of convention. First, and most potent, may be mentioned the enforced limits of the spaces to be decorated, which spaces take shape independently of the subject to be inserted. When the figures must occupy a narrow zone they are elongated, when they must occupy a square they are restricted longitudinally, and when they must occupy a circle they are of necessity coiled up. Fig. 265 illustrates the effect produced by crowding the oblong figure into a short rectangular space. The head is turned back over the body and the tail is thrown down along the side of the space. In Fig. 266 the figure occupies a circle, and is in consequence closely coiled up, giving the effect of a serpent rather than an alligator. In Fig. 267 the space is semicircular, and we observe peculiar conventional conditions, some of which may be due to other causes. For example, such spaces may originally have been filled with purely geometric figures, which tended to impart their own characters to the life forms that supplanted them. [Illustration: Fig. 268. Delineation retaining but slight traces of the life form.] [Illustration: Fig. 269. Delineation retaining but slight traces of the life form.] [Illustration: Fig. 270. Delineation retaining but slight traces of the life form.]