I present five series of figures designed to illustrate the stages through which life forms pass in descending from the realistic to highly specialized conventional shapes. In the first series (fig. 277) [fig. 335 of the present paper] we begin with _a_, a meager but graphic sketch of the alligator; the second figure, _b_, is hardly less characteristic, but is much simplified; in the third, _c_, we have still three leading features of the creature--the body line, the spots, and the stroke at the back of the head; and in the fourth, _d_, nothing remains but a compound yoke-like curve, standing for the body of the creature, and a single dot. [Illustration: Fig. 334. CONVENTIONAL FIGURE OF ALLIGATOR CROWDED INTO A CIRCLE. Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 266.] The figures of the second series (fig. 278) [fig. 336 of the present paper] are nearly all painted upon low, round nodes placed about the body of the alligator vases, and hence are inclosed in circles. The animal figure in the first example is coiled up like a serpent [fig. 334], but still preserves some of the well-known characters of the alligator. In the second example [fig. 336_b_] we have a double hook near the center of the space which takes the place of the body, but the dotted triangles are placed separately against the encircling line. In the next figure the body symbol is omitted and the three triangles remain to represent the animal. In the fourth there are four triangles, and the body device being restored in red takes the form of a cross. In the fifth two of the inclosing triangles are omitted and the idea is preserved by the simple dots. In the sixth the dots are placed within the bars of the cross, the triangles becoming mere interspaces, and in the seventh the dots form a line between the two encircling lines. This series could be filled up by other examples, thus showing by what infinitesimal steps the transformations take place. * * * We learn by the series of steps illustrated in the annexed cuts that the alligator radical, under peculiar restraints and influences, assumes conventional forms that merge imperceptibly into these classic devices. [Illustration: Fig. 335. SERIES OF FIGURES OF ALLIGATORS SHOWING STAGES OF SIMPLIFICATION. Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 277.] [Illustration: Fig. 336. SERIES SHOWING STAGES IN THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ANIMAL CHARACTERS, BEGINNING WITH THE ALLIGATOR AND ENDING WITH THE GREEK CROSS. Chiriqui. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, fig. 278.]