30 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



arm, at least three times as long as the rest of the body. This arm, it appears, 

 tries to seize a fin of an enormous fish, which, from the shape of the tail, easily 

 might be taken for a cetacean. Was the draughtsman inspired by the recollection 

 of some great maritime fishing-exploit? And why not? Have we not the 

 certainty that the aborigines made excursions to the sea-shore ? The different 

 kinds of shells which we find in tolerable number, sometimes pierced and cut by 

 man, among the fragments of flint and reindeer-horn are an irrefutable proof of 

 the fact."* 



Dr. Broca, however, gives the following explanation of the sketch : 



" It represents a man in the act of harpooning an aquatic animal. The 

 latter, although it has the form of a fish, is so much larger than the man that it 

 has been supposed to be one of the cetacea, probably a whale, and that the artist, 

 in consequence, must have found his way to the Gulf of Gascogne. I am not 

 disposed to admit this interpretation. It is hardly possible that the men of that 

 time were sufficiently expert navigators to venture upon the ocean to harpoon 

 the whale. It is said the tail and back suggest the form of a cetaceous animal ; 

 but may it not rather be a porpoise than a whale ? Porpoises sometimes sport 

 in the Gironde, and I saw once, in my childhood, one of these animals carried 

 by a flood even into the Dordogne, where it was stranded between Libourne and 

 Castillon. It was killed by fishermen with boat-hooks, and exhibited from 

 village to village. If, as is probable, the tide rose higher in those days than 

 now, and particularly if the Dordogne was wider and deeper, it is conceivable 

 that a porpoise might ascend the river high enough to come within reach of the 

 harpoons of our troglodytes, and so unusual an event would naturally inspire the 

 enthusiasm of an artist in this case very unskillful. 



" But I am tempted to believe that this pretended cetacean is only a badly- 

 drawn fish. The relative size of the man proves nothing, for the artist, through- 

 out the whole sketch, has manifested entire contempt for proportion. This too 

 diminutive man has a gigantic arm, and the harpoon he throws is proportioned 

 to the size of the fish. We are reminded of certain jocose drawings of the 

 present day, in which puny bodies are supplied with enormous heads. The 

 great interest of this particular work of art consists in the unanswerable proof 

 it gives that the troglodytes used the harpoon in fishing." f 



The original of Fig. 37, found at La Madelainc, arid evidently a part of a 

 baton, is thus described in the " Reliquiae Aquitanica3" : 



" The objects here represented are engraved on the face of a cylindrical rod, 

 which our artist has rendered diagrammatically in two separate figures, so as to 

 reproduce the whole in halves. 



*Massenat: Objects Graves ot Sculptes de Ltiugerie Basse (Dordogne) ; Materiaux; Vol. V, 1869; p. 354. 

 Sketch taken from Plate 22 of the same volume, 

 j- Broca: The Troglodytes ; p. 387. 



