with the rancheria corroborated the tradition that the great creature had afforded unlimited and acceptable food for many moons; and various expressions of the tradition indicated that the event, though the most memorable of its class, was not unique in Seri lore. [273] One of the smaller vertebræ and part of a rib are shown in the upper figure of plate vi. A few bones and fragments of skin of the seal were found in and about the rancherias on Isla Tiburon, and an old basket rebottomed with sealskin was picked up in a recently abandoned jacal on Rada Ballena; a few bones provisionally identified with the porpoise (which haunts Boco Infierno in shoals) were also found amid the refuse about the old rancheria at the base of the long sand-spit terminating in Punta Tormenta; but nothing was learned specifically concerning the chase and consumption either of these animals or of the abundant sharks from which the island is named. [Illustration: FIG. 21—Fish-spearhead.] Among the exceedingly limited food supplies brought from the coast by the Seri group at Costa Rica in 1894, were rank remnants of partly desiccated fish, usually gnawed down to heads and tails; and Mashém and others spoke of fish as a habitual food, while Señor Encinas regarded it as the principal element of the tribal dietary. The harder bones and heavier scales of several varieties of fish were also found abundantly among the middens of both mainland and Tiburon shores in 1895. None of the remains bore noticeable traces of fire; and all observations, including those of Señor Encinas, indicate that the smaller varieties of fish are habitually eaten raw, either fresh or partially dried, according to the state of appetite at the time of taking—or the condition of finding when picked up as beach flotsam. But a single piscatorial device was observed, i. e., the barbed point and foreshaft, shown in figure 21—the iron point being, of course, accultural, and probably obtained surreptitiously. This harpoon, which measures 6 inches in length over all, is designed for use in connection with the main shaft of a turtle-catching tackle; and it is evidently intended for the larger varieties, perhaps porpoises or sharks. In 1827 Hardy observed a related device: They have a curious weapon which they employ for catching fish. It is a spear with a double point, forming an angle of about 5°. The insides of these two points, which are 6 inches long, are jagged, so that when the body of a fish is forced between them, it can not get away on account of the teeth.[274] [274] Travels, p. 290*.