We need not rest satisfied with the inference that this inheritance of nicknames _will_ take place. There is proof that it _does_ take place. As nicknaming after animals, plants, and other objects, still goes on among ourselves, so among ourselves does there go on the descent of nicknames. An instance has come under my own notice on an estate in the West Highlands, belonging to some friends with whom I frequently have the pleasure of spending a few weeks in the autumn. "Take a young Croshek," has more than once been the reply of my host to the inquiry, who should go with me, when I was setting out salmon-fishing. The elder Croshek I knew well; and supposed that this name, borne by him and by all belonging to him, was the family surname. Years passed before I learned that the real surname was Cameron; that the father was called Croshek, after the name of his cottage, to distinguish him from other Camerons employed about the premises; and that his children had come to be similarly distinguished. Though here, as very generally in Scotland, the nickname was derived from the place of residence, yet had it been derived from an animal, the process would have been the same: inheritance of it would have occurred just as naturally. Not even for this small link in the argument, however, need we depend on inference. There is fact to bear us out. Mr. Bates, in his _Naturalist on the River Amazons_ (2d ed., p. 376), describing three half-castes who accompanied him on a hunting trip, says--"Two of them were brothers, namely, João (John) and Zephyrino Jabutí: Jabutí, or tortoise, being a nickname which their father had earned for his slow gait, and which, as is usual in this country, had descended as the surname of the family." Let me add the statement made by Mr. Wallace respecting this same region, that "one of the tribes on the river Isánna is called 'Jurupari' (Devils). Another is called 'Ducks;' a third, 'Stars;' a fourth, 'Mandiocca.'" Putting these two statements together, can there be any doubt about the genesis of these tribal names? Let "the Tortoise" become sufficiently distinguished (not necessarily by superiority--great inferiority may occasionally suffice) and the tradition of descent from him, preserved by his descendants themselves if he was superior, and by their contemptuous neighbours if he was inferior, may become a tribal name.[30]