132 DANIEL WILSON ON 



of the aucieut cave-meu, in the more comprehensive sense of that term, is universally 

 recognized ; but my attention was first directed to the possible cine which they might 

 furnish to the prevalent use of one or other hand in that remote age, by what, on further 

 investigation, proved to be an error in the reproduction of the famous drawing of the 

 Mammoth on a i)late of its own iA'^ory, found in La Madelaine Cave, in the Yallcy of the 

 Vézère. In M. Louis Figuier's "L'Homme Primitif," for example, which might be 

 assumed as a reliable authority in reference to the illustrative examples of French palaeo- 

 lithic art, the La Madelaine Cave sketch is incorrectly reproduced as a left-hand drawing ; 

 that is to say the mammoth is looking to the right. This is a nearly imerring test of right 

 or left-handeduess. The skilled artist can, no doubt, execute a right or left profile at his 

 will. But an unpremeditated profile-drawing, if done by a right-handed draftsman, will 

 be represented looking to the left ; as, if it is the work of a left-handed draftsman, it will 

 certainly look to the right. 



The drawings of the ancient cave-meu of Europe have naturally attracted much 

 attention. They are referrable, beyond all dispute, to a period of long diiration, 

 when the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, the fossil horse, the Irish elk, the cave bear, 

 cave lion, and cave hysena, with other extinct fauna, were to be found immediately to 

 the north of the Pyrenees, along with the musk-sheep, the reindeer, and other Arctic 

 mammals. The evidence, of the great antiquity and long duration of the period marked 

 by this extinct fauna, is of so comprehensive a character that it may be assumed to have 

 now received universal acceptance. Any indications, therefore, of special intellectual 

 capacity, such as the carvings and drawings of the palseolithic cave-men reveal, are of 

 special significance. 



Those examples of primitive art are of A^arying degrees of merit. Some may be com- 

 pared with the first efforts of any untutored youth ; while others, such as the La Made- 

 laine mammoth and the grazing reindeer from Thayngen, show the practised hand of the 

 skilled draftsman. Among the fanciful illustrations introduced by M. Louis Figuier, 

 in his " L'Homme Primitif," is a picture showing the arts of drawing and sculpture as 

 practised during the reindeer epoch. Three men of fine physique, slightly clad in skins, 

 stand or recline in easy attitudes, sketching or carving as a modern artist might do in the 

 lighter hours of his practice. One stands and sketches a deer with free hand on a piece 

 of slate, which rests against a ledge of rock as his easel. Another, seated at his ease, 

 traces a miniature device with, it may be, a pointed flint, on a slab of bone or ivory. The 

 third is apparently carving or modelling a deer or other quadruped. All are, as a matter 

 of course, represented with the stylus, graver, or modelling tool in the right hand, — the 

 question of possible left-handedness not having occurred to the modern draftsman. 



In so far as evidence, based on the direction of the profiles in the drawings thus far 

 noted, throws light on this subject, the following is some clue to the result. The Mam- 

 moth drawing from La Madelaine cave ; the bisson, imperfect, showing only the hind- 

 c[uarters ; and the ibex, on reindeer antler, from Laugerie Basse ; the group of reindeer 

 from the Dordogne, two walking and one lying on its back ; the cave bear of the Pyrenees, 

 from the cave of Massât, in the department of Ariége ; and another representing a hunter 

 stalking the Urns, — these may all be regarded as right-hand drawings. But the horses 

 from La Madelaine, engraved on reindeer-antler, specially noticeable for their large heads ; 

 the horse, from Creswell Crags ; the ibex, with legs in the air ; and, above all, the remark- 



