A FRAGMENT OF HISTORY 163 



rochs and the elk, which were formerly spread over 

 our own regions, are now settled in climates much 

 colder than ours. The few aurochs that have sur- 

 vived the general destruction of their species graze 

 in the woods of Lithuania; the elk inhabits the ex- 

 treme north of Europe and America. Transported 

 to our warmer climate, they would soon perish, being 

 unable to endure a temperature too high for them. 

 Since they flourished here in ancient times, the cli- 

 mate of our regions must at that distant epoch have 

 been colder, more severe, than it is to-day. Immense 

 forests, always damp and full of shade, were doubt- 

 less one of the causes of this more rigorous climate. 

 When these woods, impenetrable to the rays of the 

 sun, were felled by the ax of nascent civilization, the 

 soil warmed up freely and the temperature rose. 

 But then the aurochs and elk, harassed besides by 

 man, who explored all their retreats, fled a country 

 too warm for them and took refuge in the cold fogs of 

 the North. 



" Despite this change of climate some animals have 

 remained with us the same as in the old time of the 

 Gaels. In our day the same wolf still howls with 

 hunger in the woods, the same bears haunt the 

 mountain caves, the same wild boar, beset by a pack 

 of hounds in some bushy thicket, pokes its bristly 

 snout out of the brake, sharpens its tusks, and 

 gnashes its teeth as formerly when a band of tattooed 

 hunters flung their stone hatchets at its head." 



" Those first inhabitants of France were tattooed 

 like island savages 1" asked Jules. 



