Tkavkks. — (hi Food I 'hints in different Ages. 31 



results, man is almost exclusively frugiverous, drawing nearly 

 all he requires for food, as well as for shelter and clothing, 

 from the plants which spring up in profusion around him. 

 On the other hand, in the inhospitable cireumpolar regions, 

 (although the Esquimaux eats with relish the half-digested 

 moss which he finds in the stomach of the reindeer,) he is com- 

 pelled to counteract the rigour of the climate by a large con- 

 sumption of flesh food, and especially of such as is rich in 

 carbon. 



We find, however, that independently of mere climatal con- 

 siderations, in localities in which the conditions are such as to 

 admit of vigorous plant growth, the extent to which man carries 

 the utilisation of plant life for food and otherwise varies much, 

 but that it certainly increases in direct ratio with his ascent in 

 the scale of civilization ; and it is my chief object in this paper 

 to show the progress which has taken place in plant cultivation, 

 during the gradual rise of man in civilization in those parts of 

 Western Europe in which that subject has been investigated: 

 because, in the first place, it is from thence that we have ob- 

 tained the greater part of the plants, whether used for food or 

 otherwise, which are cultivated amongst us ; and because, in 

 the next place, the climatal conditions which now obtain there 

 bear a close resemblance to those of our Islands. 



The earliest rude inhabitants of Western Europe of whom 

 any traces have been discovered, are known as Paleolithic men. 

 Their remains are usually found in caves and rock-shelters, 

 associated with those of many animals now extinct, amongst 

 which were the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the reindeer, 

 the stag, the lion, the hyaena, and the bear. Remote, however, 

 as the period is from the present time, during which the earlier 

 races of these ancient men existed, the remains left behind them 

 aid by their successors ol that age, in the caves and rock-shelters 

 which they inhabited, give, to use the words of Mr. Boyd 

 Dawkins, " as vivid a picture of the human life of the period, 

 as that revealed of Italian life in the first century by the 

 buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum." These old floors 

 of human occupation contain broken hones of animals killed in 

 the chase, mingled with rude implements, weapons of bone and 

 unpolished stone, and charcoal and burnt stones, which indicate 

 the position of their hearths. And not alone do these remains 

 point to the co-existence of man with the extinct mammalia to 

 which I have referred, but they also afford clear evidence of the 

 climatal conditions which obtained during the different portions 

 of the Paleolithic period, and a clue to the characteristics of the 

 race to which the men belonged. Mr. Boyd Dawkins, in speak- 

 ing of later Paleolithic times, tells us that, in the caves which 

 yield evidences of man's occupation, "flakes without number, 

 rude stone-cutters, awls, lance-heads, hammers, saws made of 



