The curved spiral figures shown in plates 85 and 86 are combinations
of simple and complicated designs, among the most conspicuous of which
are feathers. When these figures are placed in the same position it is
possible to recognize three or four components which are designated (a)
spiral, (b) appendage to the tip of the spiral, (c) a bundle of feathers
recalling a bird’s tail, and (d) and (e) other parts of unknown homology
occasionally represented. In plate 85, _A_ the appendage _b_ to the
spiral _a_ is two triangles and two supplemental spirals arising from
their attachments. There is no representation of _c_, _d_, or _e_ in this
figure.
In _B_ of the same plate the elements _a_, _b_, _c_, and _d_ are
represented. The appendage _b_ attached to the tip of the spiral _a_ has
the form of a feather of the first type (see pl. 76), and four parallel
lines, _c_, indicating feathers, are attached to the body. The two
toothlike appendages _e_, of unknown significance, complete the figure.
In plate 85, _C_, the design _a_ has two dots _b_ on the distal tip, from
one of which arises a number of lines. The fact that _b_ in figure _B_ is
a feather leads to the belief that _b_ in figure _C_ is the same design.
Plate 85, _D_ and _E_, have a resemblance in form, _a_ and _c_ being
represented in both; _b_ and _e_ are wanting in _E_. The different
elements in these designs can be readily seen by comparing the same
lettering in _F_ and _G_, and in plate 86, _A_ and _B_, where a new
element, _t_, is introduced.
Plate 86, _B_ and _E_, are highly conventionalized designs; they suggest
bird form, examples of which have been already considered elsewhere, but
are very much modified.
There can be no doubt that it was intended to represent birds or parts of
birds as feathers in many of the above figures, but the perspective is so
distorted that their morphology or relative position on the bird to which
they belong can not be made out. In plate 86, _A_, for instance, the
bird’s body seems to be split in two parts and laid on a flat plane. The
pendent body, _t_, in the middle would be a representation of a bird’s
tail composed of three feathers and with a double triangle terminating in
dots from which arise lines of would-be feathers.
Two of the parts, _a_ and _t_, that occur in the last mentioned, are
found in plate 86, _B_, in somewhat modified form. Thus the position of
the tail feathers, _t_, figure _C_, is taken by feathers of a different
form, their extremities being cut off flat and not curved. The bundles
of feathers in _B_ and _C_ are here reversed, the left side of _B_
corresponding to the right of _C_, and the appendage on the left of the
tail of _B_ being represented by the appendage on the right of _C_.
There are other remote likenesses between them.