There is, for instance, one curious trait in actual savage custom which evidently dates from a very early stage of this epoch. It is that of the strange forms of ‘stealthy’ intercourse, being the indispensable preliminary symbols of the legality of an after marriage between the resident female of a group and an outside male. These forms are well known to anthropologists as occurring among many lower peoples. Here we find that the visits of the male suitor are supposed to be distinctly clandestine, taking place only by night, although in reality the fact is perfectly in the cognisance of the whole group. Now such fugitive and secret meetings are exactly what would have taken place when a group had arrived at a stage in which, although filial incest was decaying as a custom, there were still recognised certain marital rights over his daughter by the living father; when, in fact, tolerance of the presence of the outsider was yet in a tentative stage--and he was still regarded with suspicion, if not disfavour.[1] In consonance with the view we have advanced of the circumstances attending the entry of an immigrant suitor, it has seemed to ensue that his position would have been quite dependent, and himself considered as a foreign element. That such was actually the case seems again proved by another trait in modern custom, whose genesis, however, was of very much later date, and when speech had made some progress. In our own day clandestine intercourse, as above described, may continue to pregnancy. On the birth of the child alone does the father become recognised as part of the group. But even so his nomenclatory power as regards his offspring is absolutely nil. Far from giving a name to the child, his own is taken from his offspring. Till now, in fact, he has been nameless; in future he will be known as the father of so-and-so, of Telemachus, in the case of Odysseus. To this point we will, however, have to return when we arrive at the question of the evolution of personal descent from that of descent recognised by locality, which we consider to have been the most primitive form. [Mr. Atkinson probably means descent from a local group, say Crow, not descent denoted by a place name, as ‘de Rutherford.’]