the Pawnees, who often made use of notches cut in a stick or a similar device for the computation of nights or even of months and years[24], and the Biloxi of Louisiana[25]. Usually however the night is denoted not by this word but by ‘sleep’, ‘sleeping-time’. Of the Kiowas it is expressly stated[26] that they reckon the length of a journey in ‘darks’, _kon_, i. e. nights, and not in ‘sleeps’. If the question of the distance of any place arises the answer is ‘so many darks’. It may even be doubted whether ‘sleep’ is not sometimes translated ‘night’ by the reporters. The Dakotas say that they will return in so many nights or sleeps[27]. Among the Omahas the night or sleeping time marked the division of days, so that a journey might be spoken of as having taken so many sleeps[28]. The Hupas of Arizona[29], the tribes of the North-East[30], and the Kaigans of the North-West[31] also reckon in sleeps. This mode of reckoning is therefore the common one, that of the Comanches in suns is an exception. Finally the natives of Central Australia also count time in ‘sleeps’[32]. To reckon in nights is therefore the rule among the primitive Indo-European peoples, the Polynesians, and the inhabitants of North America. For Asia, which however is not so important for primitive time-reckoning on account of the old and far-reaching influence of civilisation in that continent, for Africa, and for S. America evidence is wanting or is forthcoming only in isolated instances. The reason probably is that in these continents also time is really reckoned in nights, and our informants have not noticed the agreement. This however is an _argumentum ex silentio_. Be that as it may, the fact remains that at least half the globe reckons the days in nights.