[259] Wild Animals I Have Known, 1898, p. 119; Century Magazine, vol. LIX, 1900, pp. 656-660. In his lectures, Mr Seton-Thompson extends his interpretations to anterior as well as to posterior markings, especially the conspicuous and persistent facial features of deer, antelope, mongrel (or ancestral) dog, etc. Such facial markings seem especially characteristic of gregarious animals; and they are peculiarly significant as social symbols rather than as mere beacons for guidance in flight. [260] The fundamental distinction is none the less valid by reason of the occasional combination of functions, as in the antelope “chrysanthemum” interpreted by Seton-Thompson. While the first survey establishes a certain analogy between the primitive face-painting and the standard-markings of animals, an important disparity is noted when the survey is extended to individuals; for among beasts and birds the standards are usually the more conspicuously displayed by the males, while the paint devices of the Seri are confined to the females. A suggestion pointing toward explanation of this disparity is readily found in the seriation of developmental stages marked by (1) the fear-born beacon-markings, (2) the confidence-speaking standard-markings, and (3) the painted symbols; for the artificial devices coincide with an immeasurably advanced mental development, with concomitant advance in safety and peace on the one hand and in artificializing weapons on the other hand. This suggestion alone fails to explain the disparity fully, yet it raises another, growing out of the great social advancement connected with the mental development—i. e., the effect of the distinctively demotic organization of the human genus as represented by the Seri people. On considering this organization, it is found strictly maternal: the tribe is made up of clans defined by consanguinity reckoned only in the female line; each clan is headed by an elderwoman, and comprises a hierarchy of daughters, granddaughters, and (sometimes) great-granddaughters, collectively incarnating that purity of uncontaminated blood which is the pride of the tribe; and this female element is supplemented by a masculine element in the persons of brothers, who may be war-chiefs or shamans, and may hence dominate the movements of groups, but whose blood counts as nothing in the establishment and maintenance of the clan organization. Thus the females alone are the blood-carriers of the clans; they alone require ready and certain identification in order that their institutional theory and practice may be maintained; and hence they alone need to become bearers of the sacred blood-standards. The warriors belong to the tribe, and are distinguished by luxuriantly flowing hair, by the up-stepping movement from which the people derive their appellation, by their unique archery attitude, and by their dark skin-color; the boys count for little until they enter the warrior class; but on the females