142 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
above all, the remarkably spirited drawing of the reindeer grazing, 
from Thayngen in the Kesserloch—a sketch, marked by incident 
both in the action of the animal and its surroundings, suggestive of 
an actual study from nature ;—all appear to be left-hand drawings. 
The number of examples thus far adduced is obviously too small 
to admit of any general conclusion as to the relative use of the right 
or left hand being based on their evidence ; but so far as it goes, it 
suggests a much larger percentage of left-handed draftsmen than is to 
be looked for on the assumption that right-handedness is the normal 
condition of man. It indicates, moreover, the importance of keep- 
ing in view the distinction between the preferential use of either 
hand by the cultured and skilled workman, or the artist, and its em- 
ployment among rude, unskilled labourers engaged in such toil as 
may be readily accomplished by either hand. That the use of the 
left hand is transmitted from parent to child; and so, lke other 
peculiarities, is to some extent hereditary, is undoubted. This has, 
therefore, to be kept in view in drawing any comprehensive deduc- 
tions from a few examples confined to two or three localities. It 
may be that the skilled draftsman of the Vézére, or the gifted artist 
to whom we owe the Kesserloch drawing, belonged to a family, or 
possibly a tribe, among whom left-handedness prevailed to an unusual 
extent, along with an amount of skill and dexterity such as is 
frequently seen to accompany the instinctive use of the left hand. In 
such circumstances left-handedness would be apt to be developed not 
only hereditarily but by imitation. Yet even among those palzoli- 
thic draftsmen a preference for the right hand was evinced by the 
majority. 
The more the subject is studied, the more it becomes manifest that 
education, with the stimulus furnished by the necessities arising from 
combined action, have much to do with a full development of right- 
handedness. There is considerable evidence in favour of the idea 
that in the majority of children, the bias leading to the preference 
for either hand is so slight that no greater effort would be required 
to develop the preferential use of the left than of the right hand. 
But with a certain number the use of the right hand is natural and 
instinctive. Others again are conscious of an equally strong im- 
pulse to use the left hand; and though education may control this, 
it cannot eradicate it. In any enquiry, therefore, into the degree of 
prevalence of right-handedness, and its instinctive, organic, or congen- 
OO 
