24 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



and line engraving. It seems to be generally assumed that 

 some of the later paintings on the walls of caves already 

 referred to really belong to the Magdalenian age, but this is 

 a question which awaits further investigation. The line en- 

 gravings, sometimes deeply cut, sometimes faintly scratched in, 

 are frequently met with on the sides of bone implements, more 

 rarely on stones ; towards the close of the period the designs 

 become conventional and geometric, but the earlier drawings, 

 which are fortunately the most numerous, are faithful delinea- 

 tions of the contemporary animals ; one of the earliest dis- 

 covered and best known is the famous mammoth from the 

 rock shelter of La Madeleine, which has always been regarded 

 with especial interest, not only as an evidently faithful portrait 

 of an extinct animal drawn from life, but as confirming in an 

 unexpected manner the conclusion obtained from other evidence 

 that palaeolithic man was familiar with this animal in the 

 living state. None of the characteristic features of the 

 mammoth have escaped the artist's observation : the profile of 

 the head, the great curved tusks, and swinging trunk, the 

 coating of long hair, the little eye and large half-opened mouth, 

 and the peculiar gait indicated by the position of the kneeless 

 hind-legs have all been rendered with convincing truth — so 

 much so that we feel as though an apology were due to the 

 artist when we add that the fidelity of his sketch is confirmed 

 by independent evidence, including that afforded by the 

 complete and well preserved specimens of the mammoth found 

 in the frozen soil of Siberia. 



The reindeer is a favourite subject, and has provoked some 

 of the cleverest sketches. The horse, supposed to be 

 Przevalsky's species, is frequently represented, and its frisky 

 colt is drawn in characteristic attitudes. Several studies are 

 known of the bison, and one in particular from Laugerie Basse 

 is of special interest, since it represents, behind a grazing bull, 

 unconscious of impending evil, a Magdalenian hunter, crawl- 

 ing on the ground with a spear in his right hand which he 

 is about to throw. The human figure is not well drawn, so 

 that no trustworthy conclusion can be deduced from it ; it 

 shows a large powerful lower jaw with an angular chin, and a 

 curiously peaked roof to the skull ; a hatching of simple lines 

 represents the hair of the head, and since similar lines are 

 distributed over the legs and body it has been conjectured 



