The serpent, especially the rattlesnake, has always taken a leading place in the mythology and the art of the more cultured American races, and crest-plumes, and wings have often been considered its proper attributes. The conventional method of representation is also characteristically aboriginal. The plumes, the figure connected with the eye, the bands upon the neck, the stepped figures of the body, and the semi-circular patches on the wings are all characters that appear again and again in the ancient art of the United States. The peculiar emblematic treatment of the heart is almost universal in temperate North America. And just here I may be permitted to suggest that the remarkable feature of the great earth-work serpent of Adams county, Ohio, which has been regarded as the "symbolic egg," and which in its latest phase has become the issue of a frog and the prey of the serpent, is possibly intended for the heart of the serpent, the so-called frog being the head. The rosette figures are not often duplicated in Indian art. There can be little doubt that the figures of this design are derived from mythology. _Eccentric forms._--A form of vessel of which civilized men make peculiar use is depicted in Fig. 413. There is a marked resemblance to a common tea-pot. A very few examples have been found, two of which are illustrated in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. The specimen here given is well made and carefully finished. The neck is low and wide, and the body is a compressed sphere. The spout is placed upon one side and a low knob upon the other. The absence of a handle for grasping indicates that the vessel was probably not intended for boiling water. These characters are uniform in all the specimens that have come to my notice. Two small circular depressions occur on the sides of the vessel alternating with the spout and the knob and with these features form centers for four rosettes of involute incised lines. The origin of this form of vessel is suggested by a fine red piece from "Mississippi," now in the national collection. The knob is the head of a turtle or other full-bodied reptile, and the spout takes the place of the creature's tail. Many of the animal-shaped vases would resemble this form closely if an opening were made through the top of the body and through the tail. [Illustration: FIG. 413.--Teapot-shaped vessel: Arkansas.--1/3.] [Illustration: FIG. 414.--Vessel of eccentric form: Arkansas.--1/3.] In connection with the teapot-like vessels it will be well to describe another novel form not wholly unlike them in appearance, an example being shown in Fig. 414. The shoulder is elongated on opposite sides into two curved, horn-like cones, which give to the body a somewhat crescent-shaped outline. It is of the ordinary plain, dark ware, and has had a low stand or base which is now broken away.