EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



ler. The reindeer, which thus supplied them 

 with clothes and weapons, was also slain for 

 food ; and, besides, they slew whales and seals 

 on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, and in the 

 rivers they speared salmon, trout, and pike. 

 They also appear to have eaten, as well as to 

 have been eaten by, the cave-lion and cave- 

 bear. Many details of their life are preserved 

 to us through their extraordinary taste for en- 

 graving and carving. Sketches of reindeer, mam- 

 moths, horses, cave-bears, pike, and seals, and 

 hunting scenes have been found by the hun- 

 dred, incised upon antlers or bones, or some- 

 times upon stone ; and the artistic skill which 

 they show is really astonishing. Most savages 

 can make rude drawings of objects in which 

 they feel a familiar interest, but such drawings 

 are usually excessively grotesque, like a child's 

 attempt to depict a man as a sort of figure eight, 

 with four straight lines standing forth from the 

 lower half to represent the arms and legs. But 

 the Cave-men, with a piece of sharp-pointed 

 flint, would engrave, on a reindeer antler, an 

 outline of a urus so accurately that it can be 

 clearly distinguished from an ox or a bison. 

 And their drawings are remarkable not only for 

 their accuracy, but often equally so for the taste 

 and vigour with which the subject is treated. 



Among uncivilized races of men now living, 

 there are none which possess this remarkable 

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