Experience has taught me that records of songs are the best which can be obtained. These are, as a rule, better adapted to the phonograph. Rituals and prayers are repeated in such a low tone that they are, as a general thing, imperfectly reproduced on the wax cylinders of the phonograph. A natural timidity of the Indians with respect to repeating the sacred formulae, and the absolute fear which some of them have when the records are repeated to them by the phonograph, prevented my obtaining many of these valuable records. Still I have made a beginning, and have obtained enough to demonstrate the value, I think, of the instrument, in the preservation and study of aboriginal folk-lore. I have prepared an elaborate account of the ceremonies witnessed by me, in many of which the songs, formulae, and prayers of the participants were repeated on the phonograph, and the records themselves will be published as soon as they are carefully worked out. _J. Walter Fewkes._ [Illustration]