crete instance offered must be considered on its own merits, and in accordance with the principles I have endeavoured already to suggest to you. Many cases of dissemination are probably to be accounted for by the supposition that the tale was already known to the common ancestors of two or more tribes before they split off from the original stock. Dr. Boas, in the article I have already cited, uses the words "Dissemination from a common centre" vaguely enough to include such a process of diffusion as this, and some at least of the stories he refers to may thus be accounted for. Traditions found in remote corners of the world and among peoples of widely different culture, it must be admitted, cannot be dealt with in this way. If cases of dissemination at all, they are cases of transmission from a foreign nation. I mentioned some instances of this kind just now. In one case the same string of incidents was found in Europe at the south-eastern extremity of Asia, at the extremity of Africa, and in the heart of South America. I pointed out then that if transmission from a foreign nation had taken place, the story had been as completely absorbed into the mind of the Karen, of the Zulu, or of the Brazilian savage, and was as thoroughly incorporated with his civilisation and with his environment, as if it had originated where it was found in Burmah, in Zululand, or in the tropical forests of the Andes. I argued then that it mattered not to the anthropological student whether such a story owned a foreign parentage or not; it was equally evidence of the ideas and customs of the people who related it. Let me now invert the argument, and ask whether, when a story is as thoroughly incorporated as this with the civilisation and environment of any people, it is possible to trace its transmission from abroad without direct and definite evidence of such a transmission. In the case of Ali Baba there was an imperfect adaptation to the environment, and hence we had ground for suspecting such a transmission. We have definite external and internal evidence of the transmission of Perrault's tales into England. "We know that the reason of their adoption here was that they were products of practically the same stage of civilisation as ours. In them ideas familiar to us had been developed under influences only slightly differing from those affecting ourselves. And they came among us at a time and in a manner peculiarly favourable for their adoption and propagation here. Had they come among us two centuries, or even one
