Efforts were made to have different Seri warriors at Costa Rica in 1894 assume the normal archery attitude, with but moderate success, the best pose obtained (illustrated in plate XXVIII) being manifestly unnatural and a mere reflection of the attitude in the mind of the Caucasian poser; while the results of inquiries served only to indicate that the normal archery attitude was purposely avoided for reasons not ascertained. Fortunately another observer was more successful: in the course of the United States hydrographic surveys in 1873, Commander (now Admiral) Dewey received several visits from Seri warriors on board the _Narragansett_; and on the occasion of one of these visits, Mr Hector von Bayer, of the hydrographic party, caught a photograph of an archer in the act of drawing his bow. The negative was accidentally shattered, and no prints are known to have been made from it; but the fragments were carefully joined, and were kindly transferred to the Bureau by Mr Von Bayer in 1897, and from them plate XXIX was carefully drawn. The posture (partly concealed by the drapery) is extraordinary, being quite beyond the reach of the average human, and impossible of maintenance for any considerable interval even by the well-wonted Seri. The posture itself partly explains the difficulty of inducing the warriors at Costa Rica to assume it, since it is essentially a fleeting one, and indeed but a part of a continuous and stressful action—it is no less difficult to assume, or to catch in the camera, than the typical attitude of a baseball pitcher in action. The posture thus fortunately caught is quite in accord with the accounts of Seri archery from the esoteric side given by Mashém, and with the exoteric observations of Señor Encinas, Don Andrés, and others; for all accounts agree in indicating that the archer commonly rests inert and moveless as the watching feline up to a critical instant, then springs into movement as swiftly as the leaping jaguar, and hurls, rather than shoots, one, two, or three arrows before rushing in to the death or skulking to cover as the issue may require. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXVIII SERI ARCHER AT REST]