DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PLATES BONE IMPLEMENTS, ETC. 43 



perns, &c., where Parry lias given a sketch of this ornament specially reserved for 

 the men, we can readily discern that the teeth are the small incisors of the Rein- 

 deer, identical with those we have figured in B. Plate V. figs. 8 and 10. 



Lastly, it is known that among the same Esquimaux the Molar Teeth of the 

 Seal and the Morse (Walrus), perforated and fastened to the ends of a set of 

 cords, serve as missiles to catch birds in flight, and that these missiles are used 

 in preference to arrows in this kind of hunting*. Nothing, however, as yet 

 has occurred to authorize us to suppose that such a method was employed by the 

 aborigines of Perigord inhabiting the caves we have examined. 



"We must also accept as having been personal ornaments the fossil marine Shells 

 figured below the Teeth in our Plate B. V. All are pierced with holes as if for 

 suspension ; and some indeed have two perforations. 



Dr. Fischer, Assistant of the Professor of Palaeontology in the Museum of 

 Natural History at Paris, has had the kindness to provide us with the specific 

 determination of these Shells as many as five species, of which three only are 

 shown by the specimens figured on our Plate. They are easily recognized as 

 having been already in the fossil state when used by the old Cave-dwellers. 

 Not that we should hasten to imagine some special virtue was attributed to 

 them in consequence of their geological age ! it is rather to be supposed that, 

 in consequence of their distance from the coasts both of the Atlantic and the 

 Mediterranean, our Aborigines of Perigord found it more easy to procure in the 

 Faluns of the Bordelais or of Touraine these materials of adornment, rather less 

 fresh than if derived direct from the sea-shore, but such as Man has nearly 

 everywhere instinctively sought for. We may add that, although the Stations at 

 which these fossil Shells were found are geographically nearer to the Bordeaux 

 district than to Touraine, yet they seem rather to have been got from the Faluns 

 of the latter than from the former. 



"These five species," says M. Fischer, "are very common in the Faluns of 

 Touraine. They are also found, but less abundantly, at Dax and Bordeaux. They 



* So also perforated pieces of Walrus-ivory, either squarish or oval in form, and about 1| inch long, are 

 used by the Esquimaux for the same purpose. They are thus described in the ' Narrative of the Discovery on 

 the North Coast of America effected by the Officers of the Hudson's Bay Company during the years 1836-39 ; 

 by Thomas Simpson, Esq.' (8vo. London, 1843, p. 156) : " But what most attracted our curiosity was an 

 ingenious and novel contrivance for capturing wild fowl. It consists of six or eight small perforated ivory 

 balls, attached separately to cords of sinew, three feet long, the ends of which being tied together, an 

 expanding or radiating sling is thus formed, which, dextrously thrown at the birds as they fly past, entangles 

 and brings them to the ground." Examples of these slings, brought home by Messrs. Dease and Simpson, 

 are in the Christy Collection. 



