A VKRY OLD MASTER 113 



hyona , -wo find tho chilly cnvo bear and tlio Norway 

 lemniinfi;, the musk slioop and tho Arctic fox in tho same 

 doposits with tho lion and tho lynx, tho leopard and tho 

 rhinocoroa. The fact ia, as JMr. Alfred IIushoI Wallace 

 has pointed out, wo livo to-day in a zooloufically im- 

 poverished world, from which all tho larjj^est, iiorcest, and 

 most remarkable animals have lately been wcmhUhI out. 

 And it was in all ])rohal)ility tho cominj]^ on of tho Ico A.u;o 

 that did tho weeding. Our Zoo can boast no manmiotl} 

 and no mastodon. Tho sabre-toothed lion has gone tho 

 way of all flesh ; tho deinotherium and the colossal rumi- 

 nants of the riioceno A{^e no longer browse beside the banks 

 of Seine. Ihit our old master saw the last of some at least 

 among those gigantic quadrupeds ; it was his hand or that 

 of one among his fellows that scratched tho famous 

 mannnoth etching on tho ivory of La IMadelaino and 

 carved the ligure of the extinc^t cave bear on the reindeer- 

 horn ornaments of Laugerie l^asse. Probably, therefore, 

 he lived in the ))eriod innnediately preceding tho (Ireat Ice 

 Age, or else perha})s in one of tho warm interglacial sjjoUs 

 with which tho long secular winter of tho northern 

 hemisphere was then from time to time agreeably diversi- 

 fied. 



And what did the old master himself look like ? Well, 

 painters have always been fond of reproducing their own 

 hneaments. Have we not tho familiar young Ilaflael, 

 painted by himself, and the Rembrandt, and tho Titian, 

 and the llubens, and a hundred other self-drawn portraits, 

 all flattering and all famous? l'A"en so priniitive man 

 has drawn himself many times over, iu)t indeed on tiiis 

 particular piece of reindeer horn, but on several other 

 media to be seen elsewhere, in tho original or in good 

 copies. One of the best portraits is that discovered in the 

 old cave at Laugerie Basse by M. Elie Massenat, where u 



