Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 31.djvu/299



In the last Hispanic number of this Journal we gave a brief account of the abundant collection of Spanish folk-lore brought together through the efforts of Dr. J. Alden Mason, of the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago, as part of the survey of Porto Rico undertaken by the New York Academy of Sciences. The folk-tales, which constitute the most important and abundant part of the collection, are now being prepared for publication with the co-operation of the New York Academy of Sciences. The riddles, which made the second best collection of its kind in Spanish America, were published in the Hispanic number of this Journal above mentioned. There remain two more important branches of folk-lore in the Mason collection, — the popular coplas, which number some six hundred or more, and the material which we are now publishing under the title "Décimas, Christmas Carols," etc.

The poetic material now published has extraordinary importance and interest. Its importance lies in the fact that such an abundant number of compositions of this nature exist in Porto Rico, showing the great vitality and vigor of that class of poetical compositions among VOL. 31.—NO. 121.—19.