

i •••■'* 



From a drawing by Charles R. Knight 



THE IRISH ELK OF PLEISTOCENE EUROPE 



This magnificent deer (found fossil in the Irish peat-bogs) was not a true elk, but an 

 enormous fallow deer (recent examples of which still exist in Europe). The spread of the 

 antlers was very great, as much as 10 feet in some cases. The animal stood 7 feet at the 

 shoulder, and the head and feet were small in proportion to the general bulk. The females 

 had no antlers. This deer first appeared in western Europe during the first inter-Glacial age, 

 before the advent of man in western Europe. 



inanity* from the days of the ape-man 

 of Java, through the hundreds of thou- 

 sands of years during which the chinless 

 pre-men dwelt- in Europe, to the time 

 when men of substantially the present 

 type hunted the mammoth and the bison 

 north and south of the Pyrenees, and 

 drew and painted the great beasts on the 

 walls of their home caverns. 



This is the crucial period in the evolu- 

 tion of man from a strong and cunning 

 brute into a being having dominion over 

 all brutes and kinship with worlds lying 

 outside and beyond our own. In Mr. 

 Osborn's book this period is for the first 

 time covered as a whole and treated as 

 fully as our present knowledge permits. 

 It is the most important work on the 



*"Men of the Old Stone Age: Their En- 

 vironment, Life, and Art." by Henry Fairfield 

 Osborn. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 



evolution of our own species that has 

 appeared since Darwin's "Descent of 

 Man." 



Many works of high merit have dealt 

 with phases of what is here covered, and 

 some suggestive books of larger scope 

 have been written. The whole subject 

 has now been covered by a writer whose 

 exhaustive and many-sided knowledge, 

 whose long scientific training, whose nat- 

 ural insight, and whose singularly just 

 and fair temper enable him to give us the 

 first full, clear, and critical presentation 

 and interpretation of all that has been 

 discovered and soundly determined since 

 Darwin wrote that one of his master- 

 pieces which especially dealt with man. 



This is a strong statement. Yet it is 

 verified by an examination of the multi- 

 tudinous works treating of the matter. 

 There are books of the highest value 



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