208 PALAEONTOLOGY. 



closely to that of the reindeer ; lastly, the artist has left under the 

 shoulder a projection, slight and jagged upon its edges, which presents 

 a fair imitation of the tuft of hair often found in this position in the 

 male reindeer. It is to be regretted that this specimen should hare 

 come to us in the state of a mere rough outl%3e, as we may judge by 

 the unfinished workmanship of the blade, and certain faintly indicated 

 details of carving. 



Now, if it were necessary to adduce fresh evidence in addition ta 

 that already furnished to prove the co-existence of man and the rein- 

 deer in those regions which have become our central and meridional 

 France, we might mention pretty numerous horns of that animal, at 

 the root of which we distinguish gashes made in detaching them from 

 tfie skin. We would also direct attention to other transverse gashes 

 or incisions which we frequently observe at the base of the hoofs of 

 the reindeer of our caverns, and which have been produced by the 

 cutting of the tendons, made, as the Esquimaux still do at the pre- 

 sent day, with the intention of splitting these tendons, and dividing 

 them into threads which were used to stitch the skins of animals, and 

 also to plait cords of great strength. Lastly, we could further shew 

 a vertebra of the back of the reindeer, pierced through and through 

 by a flint weapon which has remained fixed in the bone, where it is 

 retained by a calcareous incrustation. After that, as archoeologica! 

 circumstances fitted to characterize the era of the reibdeer in France^ 

 we confine ourselves to mentioning this one, viz., that of seventeen 

 stations where we have discovered the presence of this animal in a 

 state of subjection to human agency, there is not one in which we 

 have observed traces of polish upon the stone weapons ; and, never- 

 theless, it is by many thousands that we have there collected flints, 

 cut in all varieties of types, and passing through all gradations of 

 perfection of workmanship, from the roughly sketched forms of the 

 hatchets of the drift of Abbeville and Saint-Acheul to the heads of 

 spears with multiplied faces and with the elegant waving edges of the 

 finest periods of the stone age in Denmark. 



As to the epoch at which the reindeer ceased to inhabit our tem- 

 perate Europe we have not upon this point any historical data or 

 positive chronology. The reindeer was not seen or clearly described 

 by any writer of antiquity. Caesar has only spoken of it by hearsay, 

 and as of an animal still existing somewhere in a forest of which the 

 extreme boundaries could not be reached even after a march of sixty 

 days. We have not recognized the reindeer among the animals repre» 



