PRIMEVAL MAX. 631 



tion. The ' Bruniquel Cave ' series is now divorced from 

 the collections in France, of which, it forms a complement, 

 and npon which M. Lartet has been engaged since 1861, 

 when he published his important researches on the Sepulture 

 Cave of Aurignac. Those who take an interest in the ad- 

 vancement of our knowledge of the subject would have con- 

 gratulated themselves if the Bruniquel materials had been 

 placed in his practised hands, to be included in the work 

 which he and Mr. Henry Christy are about to publish on the 

 remains of man of the ' Cave ' period in France. 



One circumstance in the case deserves to be generally 

 known. The instinct of a collector is to amass, hoard, and 

 retain. Mr. Henry Christy is the possessor of one of the 

 choicest private archaeological collections in Europe. M. 

 Lartet and he explored the Dordogne caverns on a large 

 scale, with the object — first of exhausting the ground, and 

 next of distributing duplicates. They have presented huge 

 slabs of the floor-matrix, containing embedded every variety 

 of object, to all the principal museums in Europe, and 

 selected sets to persons of all countries having a recognized 

 position as labourers in the same field ; and this, too, before 

 their own researches were published. In their case a higher 

 impulse extinguished the mere collector's instinct. No com- 

 ment is required. 



P.S. At the meeting of the Academy of Sciences (Feb. 29) 

 a note on the same and cognate subjects was communicated 

 by the Marquis de Yibraye, who has laboured so merito- 

 riously on the ossiferous caves of France. 



