256 HABITS OF THE CAVE-DWELLERS. 



and a species of spennophilus, also point to the same con- 

 clusion. The presence of the two former species in some of 

 the Swiss Lake- dwellings is not equally significant, because 

 there they are in the neighbourhood of high mountains, but 

 the highest hills of the Dordogne do not reach to an altitude 

 of much more than 800 feet. 



Another very interesting species which has recently been 

 determined by M. Lartet,. is the Antilope Saigo of Pallas, 

 which now abounds on the Steppes of North Eastern Europe 

 and "Western Asia, in the plains of the Dnieper and the 

 Volga, round the shores of the Caspian and as far as the 

 Altai Mountains. .Mr. Christy tells us that the northern 

 plains of Poland and the valley of the Dnieper are the 

 southern limits of this species at the present day. 



Again, the accumulation of animal remains in these 

 caves is itself, as Mr. Christy has ingeniously suggested, a 

 good evidence of change in the climate. We know that the 

 Esquimaux at present allow a similar deposit to take place in 

 their dwellings, but this can only be done in Arctic regions ; 

 in such a climate as that now existing in the south of France, 

 such an accumulation would, except of course in the depth of 

 winter, soon become a mass of decomposition. 



Doubtless the persevering researches of my friends MM. 

 Christy and Lartet will ere long throw more light on the 

 subject, and enable us to speak with greater confidence ; but 

 so far as the present evidence is concerned, it appears to in- 

 dicate a race of men living almost as some of the Esquimaux 

 do now, and as the Laplanders did a few hundred years 

 ago ; and a period intermediate between that of the Polished 

 Stone implements and of the great extinct mamnMia : ap- 

 parently also somewhat more ancient than that of the shell- 

 mound builders of Denmark. But if these Cave-men shall 

 eventually be shown to have been contemporaneous with the 

 cave- tiger, the cave-bear, the cave-hyaena, and the mammoth, 



