Perhaps the most prevalent type is the classic mask with leaves issuing from the mouth. This may be an idea of the mask which every player in the ancient drama wore, displayed as an ornament with laurel, bay, oak, ivy, or what not, inserted in the mouth, because it was pierced for speaking through, and the only aperture in which the decorative branches could be inserted. Or seeds might germinate in sculptured masks and so have suggested the idea. Masks were hung in vineyards, etc. [Illustration: FOLIATE MASK, ST. MARY'S MINSTER, ISLE OF THANET.] [Illustration: FOLIATE MASK, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] A mask above the internal tower-doorway in the Lady Chapel of Dorchester Abbey has a close resemblance to the classic mask in the protruding lips, which, for the conveying of the voice for the great distance necessary in the arrangement of the ancient theatres, were often shaped like a shallow speaking-trumpet. The leaves appear to be the vine, and so the head, perhaps, that of Bacchus. Between the eyebrows will be noticed an angular projection. This is probably explained by a mask in a misericorde in St. Mary's Minster, in which some object, perhaps the nasal of a helmet, comes down the middle of the forehead. The leaves in this case appear to be oak, which is, indeed, the prevailing tree used for the purpose. [Illustration: INDIAN MASK, ST. MARY'S, BEVERLEY.] [Illustration: LATE ITALIAN FOLIATE MASK, WESTMINSTER.] Occasionally a mask with leaves has the tongue protruding. Perhaps one of the most remarkable masks in Gothic is on another misericorde in the same town, but in St. Mary's Church; in which the features, the head-dress, the treatment of the ears, are all Indian, while the leaves are those of the palm. This is, perhaps, unique as an instance of Gothic work so nearly purely Indian in its form. [Illustration: RIPON, _late Fifteenth Century_.] Sometimes the leaves are much elaborated as in one of the late misericordes of Westminster Abbey; in a few cases the original simplicity is quite lost, and we have, as at Ripon, the mask idea run mad, inverted, and the leaves become a graceful composition of foliage, flower, and fruit. A rosette from the tomb of Bishop de La Wich, Chichester, has four animal faces in an excellent design. [Illustration: ROSETTE ON TOMB OF BISHOP DE LA WICH, CHICHESTER.] Often masks are of the simple description known as the Notch-head; these are of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They are generally found in exposed situations at some elevation, as among the series of corbels (_corbula_ a small basket) or brackets called the corbel-table, supporting a stone course or cornice. The likeness to the human face caused by the shadows of the T varies in different examples. That below, by curving back at the base, suggests the idea of a mouth. Occasionally, as at Finedon, Northamptonshire, the notch-head has its likeness to a face increased by the addition of ears.