Ixtab, p. 202. Compounded of the feminine prefix ir, and tab, which as a verb means "to tie to something," and as a noun, the gallows.

Uinal-Hun-Ekeh, p. 204. In the original this reads Vinal, Hunekeh. Of these words uinal is the ordinary Maya word for month; hun is "one"; but ekeh does not appear in any of the dictionaries. Perez Dicc. Maya, gives Keh as "the seventh

day."

Zacab, p. 212. Brasseur explains this in a note as "une sorte de mais moulu"; but the Diccionario de Motul, gives gakab, "la caña del mais," cornstalk. The name of the deity, therefore, was "The Nine Cornstalks." On the same page, zacah is in the usual form gaca, and is pulverized roasted maize mixed with cold water. Kanté, on the same page, is not the cedar, as the editor supposes, which in Maya is Kuche, but "a tree from whose roots the natives obtain a yellow dye" (Dicc. Motul).

Kauil, p. 216, does not appear in the dictionaries. The Abbe's suggestion that it is an error for Kabul is possibly correct; or it may be for Kaual, which means one who is very choice in food and raiment (Dicc. Motul).

Batel-okot, p. 218, means "battle dance." The similarity of the Maya batel or bateel, to battle, a battle, to the English I have elsewhere noted as an odd coincidence.

Chacan-cantun, pp. 220, 222. The original has chacacantun, and also Canzienal in place of Canziemal in Brasseur's text. On p. 222 and elsewhere instead of zac-u-uayeyab, the original text gives uniformly zacuuayayab.

The Translation.

Bishop Landa's writings on this subject were evidently mere memoranda, jotted down to await future arrangement and revision. The copyist contributed to their obscurity, so that passages of his Relacion present peculiar difficulties, some of which have led his translator wide of the mark. I shall point out some of the most notable of these.

p. 4.

"tiene mucha lama"; "la plage y est tres etendue"; more correctly "a beaucoup de limon."

p. 16. "que por esto le llamaron Lazaro"; "que les Espagnols appellent de Lazare"; better "et pour cela ils l'appellent Lazaro."

p. 24. "seis soles" is translated "trois soleils."

p. 32. "tres cuentas de piedra buenas"; "trois objets de pierre bleu travaillés." It is not easy to see where this sense was obtained.

p. 74. The space left blank at the beginning of § xiii is unnecessary, and there is no need to supply a supposed omission. The sense is "The adelantado did not occupy the best position for one who had enemies," etc.

p. 116, line 1. The words "les parecia muy mal," do not mean "bien qu'elle leur parût mauvaise," but "ce qui les defigurait beaucoup." Later, on the same page, "cuero de venado por curtir seco," does not mean "cuir de bêtes fauves tanné á sec," but "de cuir sec de chevreuil."

p. 136. "Llamanse aora los nombres de Pilar los proprios"; "Leurs noms propres aujourd'hui sont comme Pilar," etc. This is a singular mistranslation. The baptismal font in Spanish is pila, and "nombres de pila" means "christened names." The meaning evidently is "they now call themselves by their baptismal names."

p. 158. Speaking of the wooden idols which descended from father to son, Landa says they were considered the most valuable part of the heritage, "tenidos por lo principal de la herencia." This Brasseur translates "ils y avaient la plus grand confiance."

On p. 174 there are two important errors. Line 2, "los quales llaman holcanes" does not mean "à l'appel des holcans," but "qu'on appellait holcans"; and "que á essos holcanes sino era en tiempo de guerra no davan soldada," means that the holcans did not receive pay except in time of war, and not at all "Quant aux holcans, ils n'amenaient point la milice hors du temps de la guerre."

Equally incorrect is the translation of the description of the manner in which the natives wore their mantle, p. 186. But it will not be profitable to continue pointing out such slips. I have said sufficient to show that Brasseur's translation must be carefully compared with the Spanish text before it is accepted.

A very curious error in translation occurs on pp. 48 and 172, but this time it must be charged to the account, not of the Abbé, but of the Bishop himself. On p. 48, bottom, there is the extraordinary statement that as an article of defensive armor

the natives wore "jacos fuertes de sal y de algodon," "strong jackets (made) of salt and cotton!" And this is repeated, p. 172, with the specific addition that these jackets were "quilted doubly with salt for grinding!" No wonder the Abbé was nonplussed by this outrageous assertion! (See his note to p. 49.) The explanation is interesting. The word in the Maya language for salt is taab, while that for a twisted strand or cord is tab, the only difference being in the length of the vowel. Evidently Bishop Landa, or the person from whom he derived his information, mistook the native description of these quilted jackets. They were of cotton and twisted cords (tub), the layers of the former being quilted to the latter. The historian of Yucatan, Father Cogolludo, refers to them, stating that they were called by the Mexicans (Nahuas), ichcavipiles. This is a sound Nahuatl word, found in Molina's Vocabulario, and shows that the same defense was known and employed by the Aztecs. It was also familiar to the tribes of Maya lineage in Guatemala.

The Maya Characters.

A close comparison of the various Maya characters printed in Brasseur's edition with those in the Madrid copy proves that in the main his tracings were accurate.

The Calendar beginning on p. 240 reveals, however, a number of minor differences. All of Brasseur's characters tend more to the circular form than those in the later edition which are approximately quadrangular. Occasionally points of detail differ considerably, as for instance, on p. 240, the signs Ix and Cib. The lines for the month signs are much fainter and sharper in Brasseur, and that of the month Minan is incomplete, lacking a bracket-shaped appendage to the left.

The Katun-wheel on p. 312 in the Madrid edition has the inscription in its centre. The Maya words should read u uazaklom Katun, "their return the Katuns," i. e., the return or revolution of the Katuns. Brasseur translates the Spanish rendering of this, "gerra de los Katunes" by "la guerre on le jeu des Katuns." The word gerra means neither game nor war, but is dialectic for gira or giro, from girar, to turn around.

In the important matter of the alphabet on p. 320, Brasseur makes only one serious error, that is, that he places the first form of the letter b (No. 4 of his list) lengthwise instead of up

Stowell.]

[Nov. 5, right. He was led into what I think was another error by the disposition of the letters in the MS. As the Madrid edition gives a photo-lithograph of the two pages of the original text containing the alphabet and its explanation, we are in a position to examine it satisfactorily. The figures are arranged in three parallel lines across the page, and the two figures for u, stand, the first at the end of one line, the second at the beginning of the next. From their evident connection with the sign for the sky at night, I am of opinion that they belong together as members of the same sign. Or did either member of the pictographic composite serve as indicating its phonetic value?

The designs of buildings as given by Brasseur, pp. 328, 332, 342, are much neater and more regular than in the original, where they are simply out-lined with a pen neither steady nor skillful. The disposition of the parts is, however, the same in both.

From these remarks it will be seen that Don Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado has laid students of Maya culture under positive obligations by this new and complete edition of Landa's most important work, and it should find a place in those public and private libraries which aim to have at all a complete list of consulting Americana.

THE FACIAL NERVE IN THE DOMESTIC CAT.

BY T. B. STOWELL, PH.D.

(Read before the American Philosophical Society, November 5, 1886.) Introduction.

The embarrassment of the student of comparative anatomy will be greatly relieved, and his progress will be proportionately facilitated, if he has access to a complete description of the structural characters of a typical form. The anatomy of the cat furnishes a desirable and practical standard for comparison-at least for the Mammalia. Special reasons for accepting and adopting this standard have been presented elsewhere. (Anatomical Technology, 34, p. 55.)

The osteology and the myology have already been described (34, B.C.). The neurology has been given only in part; the anatomy of the brain has been published by Wilder in the Anatomical Technology (34), and in numerous papers by the same author before scientific bodies. (For the bibliography see Anatomical Technology.)