origin and development of especial devices. As it now stands we are absolutely certain that no race, no art, no motive or element in nature or in art can claim the exclusive origination of any one of the well known or standard conventional devices, and that any race, art, or individual motive is capable of giving rise to any and to all such devices. Nothing can be more absurd than to suppose that the signification or symbolism attaching to a given form is uniform the world over, as the ideas associated with each must vary with the channels through which they were developed. [Illustration: _a, b, c, d, e, f, g_ Fig. 283. Conventional figures derived from the markings of the bodies of animals.] Other classes of geometric figures, derived chiefly from scale or skin markings, are given in the fifth series. In more realistic phases of representation the dentate and dotted devices are ranged along the body of the creature, as in nature, but as convention progresses they are used independently to fill up spaces, to form the septa of panels, &c. Many illustrations appear in the preceding pages and additional examples are given in Fig. 283. It is possible that these devices come from delineations of a number of distinct animal forms; but in the higher stages of convention confusion cannot be avoided, and must have existed to some extent in the mind of the decorator; they serve, however, to illustrate the stages of simplification through which all forms extensively used for a long period must pass. The laws of derivation, modification, and application in art are the same in all. It has now been shown that life forms and their varied derivatives constitute the great body of Chiriquian decorative motives; that when first introduced the delineations are more or less realistic, according to the skill of the artist or the demands of the art; but that in time, by a long series of abbreviations and alterations, they descend to simple geometric forms in which all visible connection with the originals is lost. The agencies through which this result is accomplished are chiefly the mechanical restraints of the art acting independently of voluntary modification and without direct exercise of esthetic desire.