IOO 



HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



rude fabrics of flax or even of straw have been dis- 

 covered amongst the relics of his times ; and his 

 pottery shows a considerable advance upon that of 

 Neolithic man. 



m 



Fig. 67. Hafted Implement 

 (Neolithic), Schaffes, Switzer- 

 land, \ size. 



Fig. 66. Flint Dagger (Neo- 

 lithic), Denmark, J- size. 



T A / 



Fig. 68. Flint Axe (Neo- Fig. 69. Bronze Celt (Bronze age) 

 lithic), Denmark, \ size. Chesterfield, \ size. 



When the Bronze age passed away, which it 

 gradually did, a new metal gave its name to the 

 succeeding period ; that metal was iron, known in 

 Europe, and used before the Roman invasions outside 

 Italy, yet doubtless the Roman armies helped to make 

 its use more common, even if they did not actually 



introduce it into some countries. The men of the 

 Iron age may be looked upon as the immediate fore- 

 runners of the men of to-day, who are most un- 

 doubtedly users of iron, the metal of our modern 

 civilization. 



Thus, then, age after age of man has passed away ; 

 who shall say how many generations have lived and 

 died since the days when men, clothed in skins, 

 roamed from cave to cave, as they followed the chase, 

 and contended with the mammoth and the hysena, and 

 the cave bear, and their congeners ? 



What a tale of progress has to be recorded since 

 then, what a wondrous history of change ! Where 

 the forest and the morass once stretched, waving 

 cornfields now meet our eye ; where the savage beasts 

 of prey fought over their victims, the flocks and the 

 herds of our domestic animals peaceably feed ; and 

 man has ever advanced, step by step fighting his 

 arduous battle, and he has won victory after victory, 

 over nature, over circumstances, over himself, ful- 

 filling his lofty mission of Lord of Creation. And 

 as man has advanced in civilization, ever-increasing 

 powers seem to have been made his own, as it has 

 been well shown, new sources of strength, new 

 means of overcoming the difficulties of his position ; 

 nay, even new senses may be said to have been put 

 within his reach. The telescope and the micro- 

 scope have given him new eyes ; the printing-press 

 has given him new ears with which to hear the voices 

 of all ages ; machinery has given him new hands. 

 Thus shall man press forward, we may surely hope, 

 out of all the darkness of the past ; and at length 

 emerge through the struggles and imperfections of 

 time into the perfection of eternity. 



ORNITHOLOGICAL ESSAYS. 



No. 1. — The Kestrel. 



( Falco Tin n unculus. ) 



By T. W. Dealy. 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION, HABITS, ETC. 



THIS well-known and widely-distributed little 

 falcon is often confounded with the Sparrow- 

 hawk {Accipiter nisits), and has often to pay the 

 penalty of death for the pillaging attacks of that 

 noted farm-yard devastator. It is counted by the 

 gamekeeper and agriculturist as "vermin," and a great 

 destroyer of game and bird life generally, while, in 

 reality, it is one of their stanchest friends, as it rids 

 them of the numerous mice, beetles, reptiles, &c, 

 which otherwise would injure the crops. Although 

 the Kestrel is such a great destroyer of mice (thus 

 benefiting the farmer), it is a hawk, and for this 

 reason the land must be rid of it. We have often 

 heard of the land being overrun by multitudes of 



