In a discussion of the significance of the design on the food bowl represented in plate CXXXIX, _a_, _b_, I have shown ample reason for regarding it a figure of a highly conventionalized bird. On the upper surface of the vase (plate CXLIV, _a_, _b_) are four similar designs, representing birds of the four cardinal points, one on each quadrant. The wings are represented by triangular extensions, destitute of appendages but with a rounded body at their point of juncture with the trunk. Each bird has four tail-feathers and rain-cloud symbols on the anterior end of the body. As is the case with the figures on the food basins, there are crosses representing stars near the extended wings. A broad band connects all these birds, and terraced rain-cloud symbols, six in number and arranged in pairs, fill the peripheral sections between them. This vase, although broken, is one of the most beautiful and instructive in the rich collection of Sikyatki ceramics. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLIII VASE WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLIV VASE WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CXLV VASES WITH FIGURES OF BIRDS FROM SIKYATKI] [Illustration: FIG. 274--Upper surface of vase with bird decoration] I have not ventured, in the consideration of the manifold pictures of birds on ancient pottery, to offer an interpretation of their probable generic identification. There is no doubt, however, that they represent mythic conceptions, and are emblematic of birds which figured conspicuously in the ancient Hopi Olympus. The modern legends of Tusayan are replete with references to such bird-like beings which play important rôles and which bear evidence of archaic origins. There is, however, one fragment of a food bowl which is adorned with a pictograph so realistic and so true to modern legends of a harpy that I have not hesitated to affix to it the name current in modern Tusayan folklore. This fragment is shown in figure 275. [Illustration: FIG. 275--Kwataka eating an animal]