32 



The Prehistoric Hunter. 



SKELETON OF THE GREAT IRISH ELK — IN THE NEW YORK MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



been found in the flesh, imbedded in the arctic ice of Siberia, 

 where a few have been preserved by refrigeration during untold 

 ages. 



It is not difficult to make a sketch of this ancient hunter. We 

 see him clad in skins. He is armed with a stone axe fastened 

 to a long handle, a long-shafted flint-tipped spear, and a sharp 

 flint knife. Thus equipped, the hunter of the drift set out in 

 pursuit of game which in size and numbers exceeded any 

 now existing. We can imagine a company of these men craftily 

 approaching a herd of aurochs, or wild horses, selecting one for 

 their prey, and then, with the stealthy approach of the tiger, 

 drawing near till with sudden spring they felled the animal to 

 the ground with blows of their tomahawks or thrusts of their 

 lances ; or we see them speeding over the snow, giving chase to the 

 huge mammoth, the wild urus, or to the swift elk, till these animals, 

 succumbing to the superior endurance of man to fatigue and hunger, 

 allow the hunters to surround them, and the game falls, pierced with 

 flint lances or stunned with the blows of stone axes. 



