AN ENGRAVED FIGUKE OF A GLUTTON. 



209 



XX, 



ON AN ENGEAVED FIGUKE OF A GLUTTON FEOM ONE OF THE DOEDOGNE CAVES. 



By Professor T. EOTEKT JONES, F.E.S., F.G.S. 



THE accompanying woodcut is engraved from the photograph of a specimen 

 believed by the late M. E. Lartet to have been abstracted by a workman from 

 one of Mr. H. Christy's diggings in the Caves of Dordogne. 



Fig. 80. 



Outline of the Glutton, cut on a piece of Antler, from one of the Caves in the Department of the Dordogne. 



In M. G. de Mortillet's "Promenades pr&iistoriques a 1'Exposition universelle," 

 1867 (' Materiaux pour Phistoire de I'Homme,' vol. iii. p. 201), this specimen, re- 

 ferred to as being exhibited among others from the Caves of the Department of 

 the Dordogne, and belonging to M. Peccadeau de 1'Isle, is described in these 

 words : " La piece capitale est une lame de bois du renne, troupe pour suspen- 

 sion, portant une gravure tres-nette d'un animal qui a un peu le museau carre" 

 des hippopotames, mais qu'il est fort difficile de determiner exactement." 



The object itself is a blade-like piece of Reindeer antler, perforated near one 

 end, and bearing an incised outline of a hairy quadruped, with heavy head and 

 large tail. To this figure the Glutton, Oulo luscus (Linn.), most nearly answers, 

 as indeed the late M. Lartet always thought. The hairy saddle on the back of 

 the figure very nearly coincides with the outline of the "blackish dorsal disk" 

 (Dr. J. E. Gray, "On the Mustelidje," 'Proceed. Zoolog. Soc.' 1865, p. 120), weU 

 seen in Schreber's figure of the Glutton (' Saugthiere in Abbildungen nach der 

 Natur mit Beschreibungen,' iii. 1778, p. 525, pi. 144), and in that given by Pallas 

 ('Spicilegia Zoologica,' xiv. 1779, pi. 2); and distinguishable in the more lively 

 picture of the Glutton in Paul Gervais's 'Histoire naturelle des Mammiferes,' 

 1855, p. 109. The tail and jaws in the outline from the Dordogne are larger than 

 represented by either Schreber or Pallas, who seem to have had their drawings 



