THE CAVE-DWELLERS OF FRANCE. 



707 



we are forced to admit that in those ancient days, as in our own, there 

 were not wanting bad artists ; and, yet, amid a number of coarse de- 

 signs, there are not a few which are truly worthy of note, and which 

 betray an able hand, and an eye trained to observe Nature. 



Designing undoubtedly preceded sculpture among the Troglcdytes, 

 and their figures in relief are much fewer in number and less perfect 

 than their engraved sketches. These latter figures generally form the 

 ornamentation of the bdton de comma?idement, or of the hafts of dag- 

 gers ; but sometimes they are found on stone slabs, or on plates of 

 ivory or of reindeer-horn, which would appear to have been prepared 



Fig. 7. 



Handle of a Poniaed. 



simply to receive the engravings. Nearly all the designs represent 

 objects in Nature, though some of them are simply ornamental lines, 

 zigzags, curves, etc. Three small brank-ursines, engraved on a piece 

 of reindeer-horn, would appear to represent a polypetal flower ; but all 

 the other figures represent animals. The reindeer occurs most fre- 

 quently, the ox and the aurochs being more rare. These various ani- 

 mals are readily distinguishable in the engraved figures, their respec- 

 tive gait and motion being oftentimes reproduced with considerable 

 exactness and elegance. Sometimes they are isolated, being represented, 

 without any order, over the entire surface of some instrument ; but, 

 again, they are found grouped together, engaged in combat, etc. (Fig. 6). 

 The engraving of the mammoth was found, in 1864, in the cave of La 

 Madelaine. The head of the animal is given with remarkable exacti- 

 tude. The Marquis de Vibraye has since discovered a bdton de com- 

 mandement, with a mammoth's head sculptured on it. These two 

 pieces are the only ones representing the mammoth which have come 

 down to our time from the hands of the Troglodytic artists, but they 

 suffice to show that the animal was not yet extinct. 



Figures offish are not rare, and they all, with one exception, repre- 

 sent the salmon. Fdie Massenat found at Laugerie-Basse the shoulder- 

 blade of an ox, bearing a rude sketch of a fishing-scene a man casting 

 a harpoon at some aquatic animal, a porpoise, apparently. This design 

 has a special interest, as going to show that our Troglodytes fished 

 with the harpoon. 



In sketching the human figure (which they did but rarely), these 



