These drawings occur upon the sides of vases, alternating with the plastic features, and are perhaps generally associated with such features in the expression of some mythical idea.
Fig. 261. Style of convention in the alligator group of ware.
The modeled creature is often represented with two heads instead of with a head and a tail, and the painted forms, in many cases, exhibit the same peculiarity as shown in Fig. 262. I surmise that the employment of two heads arises from the need of securing perfect balance of parts rather than as an original product of the imagination.
Fig. 262. Two headed form of the alligator.
It will be interesting, as additional examples are presented, to note the effect of modification upon particular features of the animal, to observe how some come into prominence, representing the creature and the idea, while others fall into disuse and disappear. In nature the line of the body is perhaps the most strongly characteristic feature, and it is in art the most persistent. It survives in the stems of many conventional devices from which all other suggestions of the animal have vanished.