I present five series of figures designed to illustrate the stages through which life forms pass in descending from the realistic to highly specialized conventional shapes. In the first series (Fig. 277), we begin with a meager but graphic sketch of the alligator; the second figure is hardly less characteristic, but is much simplified; in the third we have still three leading features of the creature: the body line, the spots, and the stroke at the back of the head; and in the fourth nothing remains but a compound, yoke-like curve, standing for the body of the creature, and a single dot. [Illustration: _a, b, c, d_ Fig. 277. Series of derivatives of the alligator showing stages of simplification.] The figures of the second series (Fig. 278) are nearly all painted upon low round nodes placed about the body of the alligator vases and hence are inclosed in circles (see Fig. 197). The animal figure in the first example is coiled up like a serpent, but still preserves some of the well known characters of the alligator. In the second example we have a double hook near the center of the space which takes the place of the body, but the dotted triangles are placed separately against the encircling line. In he next figure the body symbol is omitted and the three triangles remain to represent the animal. In the fourth there are four triangles, and the body device, being restored in red, takes the form of a cross. In the fifth two of the inclosing triangles are omitted and the idea is preserved by the simple dots. In the sixth the dots are placed within the bars of the cross, the triangles becoming mere interspaces; and in the seventh the dots form a line between the two encircling lines. This series could be filled up by other examples, thus showing by what infinitesimal steps the transformations take place. The round nodes upon which these medallion-like figures are drawn are survivals of the heads or other parts of animals originally modeled in the round, but in the processes of manufacture partially or wholly atrophied. It was sought to preserve the idea of the creature by the use of painted details, but these, as we have seen, were also in time reduced to formal marks, symbols doubtless in many cases of the conception to which the original plastic form referred. [Illustration: Fig. 278. Series showing stages in the simplification of animal characters.] [Illustration: _a, b, c, d_ Fig. 279. The scroll and fret derived from the body line of the alligator.] [Illustration: _a, b, c, d_ Fig. 280. Devices derived from drawings of parts of the life form.] [Illustration: Fig. 281. Devices incised in a needlecase.] [Illustration: Fig. 282. Devices representing the markings of a reptile’s body.]