thus.  In the earliest times there were homogeneous groups, which became, totem kin.  Let us say that, in a certain district, there were groups called woodpeckers, wolves, bears, suns, swine, each with its own little territory.  These groups were exogamous, and derived the name through the mother.  Thus, in course of time, when sun men married a wolf girl, and her children were wolves, there would be wolves in the territory of the suns, and thus each stock would be scattered through all the localities, just as we see in Australia and America.  Let us suppose that (as certainly is occurring in Australia and America) paternal descent comes to be recognised in custom.  This change will not surprise Sir Henry Maine, who admits that a system of male may alter, under stress of circumstances, to a system of female descents.  In course of time, and as knowledge and common sense advance, the old superstition of descent from a woodpecker, a bear, a wolf, the sun, or what not, becomes untenable.  A human name is assumed by the group which had called itself the woodpeckers or the wolves, or perhaps by a local tribe in which several of these stocks are included.  Then a fictitious human ancestor is adopted, and perhaps even adored.  Thus the wolves might call themselves Claudii, from their chief’s name, and, giving up belief in descent from a wolf, might look back to a fancied ancestor named Claudius.  The result of these changes will be that an exogamous totem kin, with female descent, has become a gens, with male kinship, and only the faintest trace of exogamy.  An example of somewhat similar processes must have occurred in the Highland clans after the introduction of Christianity, when the chief’s Christian name became the patronymic of the people who claimed kinship with him and owned his sway.

Are there any traces at all of totemism in what we know of the Roman gentes?  Certainly the traces are very slight; perhaps they are only visible to the eye of the intrepid anthropologist.  I give them for what they are worth, merely observing that they do tally, as far as they go, with the totemistic theory.  The reader interested in the subject may consult the learned Streinnius’s ‘De Gentibus Romanis,’ p. 104 (Aldus, Venice, 1591).

Among well-known savage totems none is more familiar than the sun.  Men claim descent from the sun, call themselves by his name, and wear his effigy as a badge. {270} Were there suns in Rome?  The Aurelian gens is thus described on the authority of Festus Pompeius:—­’The Aurelii were of Sabine descent.  The Aurelii were so named from the sun (aurum, urere, the burning thing), because a place was set apart for them in which to pay adoration to the sun.’  Here, at least, is an odd coincidence.  Among other gentile names, the Fabii, Cornelii, Papirii, Pinarii, Cassii, are possibly connected with plants; while wild etymology may associate Porcii, Aquilii, and Valerii with swine and eagles.  Pliny (’H.  N.’ xviii. 3) gives a