THE EARLIEST PICTURE IN THE WORLD 25 



geese to the ship's barnacle exercised its influence over 

 three thousand years and led to the mediaeval belief in the 

 hatching of young geese from barnacles attached to float- 

 ing timber, and even from the buds of trees (see my 

 "Diversions of a Naturalist": Methuen, 1915). Nevertheless 

 it must not be supposed that the connection of the Lortet 

 engraving and the vase-painting of Tiryns is probable or 

 more than a very remote possibility. The gap in time is 

 too vast, and our present ignorance of what took place in 

 that interval too complete, to warrant us in regarding the 

 resemblance as more than a coincidence. 



