I have had occasion to observe the effect of factory production and of slovenly execution in some Mexican material. In western Mexico dishes are made of tree calabashes which are covered with an orange laquer. By the lost-color process these are overlaid with designs in green laquer. The industry is probably of Spanish origin. Old specimens made of wood are of excellent workmanship. These are decorated mostly with animal forms, deer, fish, and so on. At present the work is of much poorer execution and the ware is sold in market places, as in Oaxaca (fig. 122). On some specimens the fish designs of ancient type are still used, but we find also, even more frequently, leaf patterns and we may here apparently observe just that kind of misunderstanding described by Balfour. The gill region becomes the base of the leaf. The head of the fish corresponds to the base of the leaf; the fins to the marginal indentations, and the ribs of the fish to the veins of the leaf. Since both the fish and the leaf occur in modern types it may be doubted whether we are dealing with an actual transformation, with a real misunderstanding. It might be as well that the psychological process involved has been rather the substitution of new subject matter for the old, in which process the new subject was rigidly controlled by the old, stereotyped form. We shall see that conditions of this kind are often very potent. [Illustration: Fig. 122. Designs from vessels made of tree calabashes, Oaxaca.] [Illustration: Fig. 123. Fragments of pottery vessels, Texcoco.] [Illustration: Fig. 124. Designs from pottery vessels, Culhuacan.] Another good example is the pottery made for sale by the ancient inhabitants of the Valley of Mexico. Pottery was made here in great masses and, as described by Sahagun,[76] sold in the market places. The vessels show plainly the effect of factory production and of the resultant slurring. The Aztec pottery is fundamentally of uniform type. In Culhuacan, a small village at the foot of the Sierra de la Estrella, a coarse kind of this ware was made. Great masses of potsherds are found in the swampy soil which was used in early times as garden beds. The pottery is thick, dark orange, painted black. It is a pronounced local form, darker than the light ware of Texcoco (fig. 123); the painted lines are broad and coarse, while those of Texcoco are very delicate. The patterns are fixed, but the rapidity of manufacture has developed a definite style, analogous to the styles of handwriting. Each painter had his own method of handling the brush, with the result that his individuality may easily be recognized.[77] I select a few examples here in order to show the effect of slurring upon design. It is essential to note that on the same specimen the lines are always drawn in the same way; that is, that the hand of the painter followed very definite motor habits.