Notes and Comments. 287 



OT 'nesting.' In the circumstances we hardly care to go to 

 Catford to see the frog nesting there, but if any of our readers 

 wish to go, we shall be happy to supply the necessary address. 

 We should like to congratulate the Catford froggy on having 

 appropriately chosen a gooseberry bush in which to bring forth 

 his, or should it be her, brood. 



EARLY MAN. 



In his presidential address to the Geological Society of 

 London,* Prof. W. J. Sollas dealt with the question of early 

 man, his evolution, etc. In this he points out that so far as 

 the evidence extends, man seems to have attained at a com- 

 parativeh'- early stage the full powers of his intellect ; his 

 subsequent advance has been due less to its continued develop- 

 ment than to its constant exercise, and especially to the ])er- 

 fection of speech, its great instrument. The whole history of 

 man, as far as it is known to us, has been one long continuous 

 advance, marked stage after stage by momentous discoveries ; 

 already on his first emergence from obscurity in Mousterian 

 times we find him in possession of the art of kindling fire ; 

 he knew how to fashion weapons and to weild them, and he had 

 arrived at the belief that life is not ended with the grave, 



PALEOLITHIC AND NEOLITHIC MAN. 



Through the succeeding stages of the palseolithic epoch we 

 witness a rapid improvement of implements and weapons, as 

 well as the invention of new ones, and, most remarkable of all, 

 the birth of art and its early efflorescence. The close of the 

 palaeolithic epoch is marked by a considerable gap in our know- 

 ledge ; but, as we enter the next succeeding or neolothic epoch, 

 we discover evidence of another great forward step : the wild 

 roaming life of the hunter has been exchanged for a pastoral 

 existence in settled communities, man has learnt to domesticate 

 the animals of the chase, and in so doing he has become domes- 

 ticated himseli No great interval separates the neolithic 

 epoch from the early civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, 

 which are distinguished by an extraordinary advance in every 

 direction. 



FINDS AT FILEY. 



Judging from the periodical effusions in various London 

 and provincial newspapers, Filey bids fair to take a hrst place 

 amongst the silly-season atti'actions, and we are daily expecting 



* Printed in the Quarterly Journal of the Geolog-ical Society, No. 262. 

 igio. 

 1910 Aug. I. 



