The present isolation of the Seri throws light on their early history and reveals the extent of the misapprehension of the pioneer missionaries, who half deluded themselves and wholly deluded distant readers into the notion that the Seri were really proselyted and actually collected in the mission-adjuncts of military posts established to protect settlers against forays of the tribe; for, as illumined by later and fuller knowledge of the tribal characteristics, the chronicles are seen to indicate merely that a few captives, malingerers, cripples, spies, and tribal outcasts were harbored at the missions until death and occasional escapes brought the colonies to a natural end, with no real assimilation of blood or culture on either side. So, too, the persistent tribal antipathy reveals the error of confounding the independent or even inimically related outbreaks of the Seri and of the Pima or Apache with the concerted action of confederated tribes. Doubtless the ever-watchful spies from Tiburon habitually gave notice of the disturbance due to outbreaks of contemporary tribes, just as they do today when the local soldiery are withdrawn for duty on the Yaqui frontier; naturally the civil and military authorities were thereby led to provide for protection against the Seri and Piato, against the Seri and Pima, or against the Seri and Apache at each period of disturbance, just as they provided against the Seri between periods; and it would appear that this association in thought and speech led to the unconscious magnification, in the minds of the chroniclers, of a supposed alliance. In brief, the tribal relations of the Seri seem always to have been antipathetic, especially toward the aboriginal tribes of alien blood, in somewhat less measure toward Caucasians, and in least—yet still considerable—degree toward their own collinguals and (presumptive) consanguineals. POPULATION So far as could be ascertained by inquiries of and through Mashém in 1894, the Seri tribe then comprised about 60 or 70 warriors, with between three and four times as many women and children—i. e., the population was apparently between 250 and 350. The group of about 60 (including 17 warriors) seen at Costa Rica was evidently growing rapidly, to judge from the proportion of youths of both sexes, infants in arms, and pregnant women; and there are other indications that the tribe is prolific and well-fitted to survive unless cut off in consequence of the hereditary antipathy toward alien blood and culture.