THE EARLIEST PICTURE IN THE WORLD

IN Figs. 1 and 2 on the next page a cylindrical piece of the antler of a red deer is represented of half the natural size. On it are carved by in-sunk lines certain representations of animals. It was found in the cavern of Lortet, near Lourdes, in the department of the Hautes PyrÉnÉes, in the south of France, together with many other remains of prehistoric man. This cavern was excavated and all its contents of human origin carefully preserved by M. Edouard Piette in 1873 and the following years. Drawings of this and other remarkable carved pieces of bone and antler, many in the form of harpoon heads, and of small chipped flint implements, all found in this cave, were published by him. [1] He excavated also several other caverns with great care, and his collections were bequeathed by him on his death to the great Museum of National ArchÆology at St. Germain, near Paris, where I have had the advantage of studying them.

The age assigned to this carving is that called by Piette "Elapho-Tarandian." At this period the reindeer (Tarandus), which previously abounded, is giving place to the red deer (Elaphus). The layer in which this carving was found belongs to the latest of the PalÆolithic cave deposits, and was followed by a warmer period, in which the red deer and the modern fauna entirely replaced the old fauna of the Glacial period. The deposits in Pyrenean caves of the Elapho-Tarandian age are characterized by an abundance of large flat harpoons serrated on both sides. In this latest horizon of the Reindeer period the art of engraving in outline on bone and stone had attained the highest pitch of excellence which it reached in the prehistoric race of South-West Europe.

A very natural tendency among those who hear from time to time something of what is being discovered about primitive man is to confuse all the periods and races of prehistoric man together, and so picture to themselves one ideal "primitive man." My friend Mr. Rudyard Kipling does this, although it would be no further from a true conception were he to blend his ancient Britons, his Phenicians, his Romans, his Saxons, his Normans, and a few Hindoos into one imaginary man and represent him as taking a coloured photograph of the Druids of Stonehenge on a piece of Egyptian papyrus. Here is Mr. Kipling's vision of primitive man:

The fact is that several prehistoric races have succeeded one another in Western Europe during the immensely long period—amounting to hundreds of thousands of years—during which man existed before the dawn of history. The "lost" or "prehistoric Dordogne" was like the present historic Dordogne in regard to the fact that many races and dynasties successively held possession of it and left their work in its soil and caves.

Passing back through the historic age of iron and the sub-historic age of bronze, we come to a time, about four thousand years ago, when there were no men in the west of Europe who made use of metals at all, although, for a thousand or two years earlier, men were using bronze and copper in the East. European races immediately before the first use of metals made beautiful implements of stone (chiefly flint), and finished them by grinding and polishing them. These men are spoken of as Neolithic men, or men of the Neolithic period. They had herds and cultivated crops, and they built after a fashion rough houses in wood and tombs and temples with great slabs of stone. They made pottery and woven cloth. The animals and plants of Europe were the same in those late prehistoric times as they are to-day. The Lake dwellings of Switzerland belong to this epoch and yield us their remains as evidence. The men had very nearly the same set of domesticated animals as we have to-day, but they had no skill in carving outlines of animals. Their only decorative work consisted of parallel lines, straight or in zigzags or in circles, graven on the great stone slabs which they erected.

We can trace them back to some seven thousand years B.C. and then comes a huge gap—we do not know how many thousand years—in our evidence as to what was going on in this part of the world. We find convincing proof that before this interval the climate was much colder than it is to-day, and that the land surface of Europe was in many respects very different from what it became later. Britain was continuous with the Continent. There were in that remote period human tribes spread over the less frigid valleys of Europe. They had no fields, no herds; they fed on the roasted flesh of the animals they chased and on the fish they speared, and on wild fruits and roots. They dwelt chiefly, if not wholly, in caves, probably also in skin tents, but they did not build either in wood or in stone. The age which we thus reach is called the PalÆolithic, or "ancient" Stone age, because men made use of stone, which they chipped into shape, but, unlike the Neolithic people, never polished it. We find enormous numbers of these rough or PalÆolithic stone implements both in caves and in the gravels deposited in the ancient beds of rivers. They are so abundant as to prove the existence of a very considerable human population in the remote ages when they were fashioned and used. The changes which have taken place and the time involved since some of these PalÆolithic implements were made and used may be guessed at (but cannot be definitely calculated) from the fact that the beds of the rivers which formed the gravel terraces in which they are found in England were, in many cases, from one to six hundred feet above the level of the present rivers. The land surface has risen and the rivers have simultaneously excavated deep and wide valleys leaving terraces of gravel high up on their sides. These show where the rivers once flowed. The vastness of the excavation of the valley from the level of the old river bed 600 ft. up on the sloping hill-side to its present low-lying bed in the floor of the valley—gives us some measure of the time which has elapsed in the process.

No one can tell, at present, the limit in the past of PalÆolithic man. The period of time over which his existence extended, as indicated by the trimmed flints undoubtedly made by human workmanship, is a matter of hundreds of thousands of years. In Western Europe races came and went, succeeded one another and disappeared, either migrating or absorbed or more rarely destroyed by the later invaders. Naturally enough, in the later deposits of rivers and in the higher layers of earth and limestone cake which fill many caves to the depth of 30 or 40 ft. we find the remains of man's workmanship more abundantly than in the older deposits.

We can broadly distinguish in the PalÆolithic epoch three (perhaps four) periods, separated by the occurrence of great extensions of the northern or arctic ice cap of such a volume as to cover North Europe and North America, and the simultaneous extension of the glaciers of the mountains of Europe. This period of the alternating extension and retreat of the great northern glaciers is known as the Glacial period, or Ice Age. The latest PalÆolithic men are subsequent to it—that is, post-Glacial. We can distinguish several successive ages of these post-Glacial PalÆolithic men, altogether distinct from and anterior to the Neolithic men. In the earlier of these ages many of the great animals of the Glacial period—now extinct or withdrawn to other regions—still survived in Europe. The mammoth survived, but was fast dying out in the south and centre of France, and we find its outline scratched on ivory and on bone by the early post-Glacial men. The lion still survived in Europe, also the hyena, the bear and the rhinoceros. The reindeer seems to have been especially abundant, and to have been associated with the men of this period. The horse was very abundant, and was largely eaten by the earlier post-Glacial people. From the first these men show extraordinary artistic skill, and have left in their caves many carvings on ivory, bone and stone. In the oldest deposits of the post-Glacial age the carvings are complete all-round sculptures of small size or carvings in low relief, all of rough primitive workmanship. Larger life-size sculptures in rock are also found. In later deposits we find better sculpture and also engraving on flat pieces of bone and ivory, and also on stone. This art persisted, and attained its greatest perfection in the latest deposits of all in which the work of PalÆolithic man is found. The reindeer persisted through this post-Glacial period (hence often called "the reindeer period") until the gradual increase of temperature and change of herbage and forest led to its migration northwards and to the relative abundance of the red deer. It is to this latest period—the Elapho-Tarandian of Piette—that the engraved antler figured here (Figs. 1 and 2) belongs.

At an earlier stage of the post-Glacial period men hunted the bison and other large game in the north of Spain and made coloured drawings of them on the roofs and walls of their caves, drawings which have been copied and preserved: whilst the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the cave lion and bear still inhabited south central France and are pictured on the walls of caves in that region—as described in Chapter II. Later we lose all trace of PalÆolithic man and his wonderful artistic skill. He seems either to have migrated or to have been absorbed in the immigrant Neolithic race—a race singularly devoid of any tendency to artistic sculpture or engraving.

The skeletons and skulls of the men of the Reindeer period, or post-Glacial PalÆolithic men, have been discovered here and there. They indicate a fine, tall people with well-shaped skulls and jaws, comparable to the nobler modern races. It is convenient to call them Cromagnards, since good skulls of the race have been described from Cromagnon, in France. There is evidence (from skulls) that another race (the negroid so called "Aurignacians") preceded and coexisted to some extent in Western Europe with them, but we have, at present, no evidence as to whence or how the Neolithic race or the Cromagnard race or any of their predecessors came upon the scene!

When we go farther back and reach the actual Glacial period we find a very different state of things. The men who then existed in the caverns are called the Neander men. They were a short, bandy-legged, long-armed, low-browed people, great workers of flints. They had the use of fire, and contended with hyenas and bears and lions for the occupation of their caverns. In their day—the day of European glaciation—the mammoth was in full occupation of the pine forests on the edge of the glaciers. But the Neander men made no sculptures, or carving, or engravings. The gap between them and the Cromagnon men is much greater than that between an Australian black fellow and an average Englishman; indeed, the difference is properly expressed by regarding the Neander man as a distinct species—Homo neanderthalensis.

Passing again farther back over an immense period of time, we find Europe warm again; the glaciers have (for a time) gone or retreated far up the mountains but are found in extension again at a still earlier date. An inter-Glacial set of animals is now found living in a comparatively warm climate in Western Europe. Another elephant (Elephas antiquus) is there (not the mammoth), and another rhinoceros (not the woolly rhinoceros of the later Glacial period); the hippopotamus flourished then in Europe and swam in the Thames and Severn, and there too, at last is the sabre-toothed tiger, which did not exist at all at a later period! Now was the time when a man, if he could, might have "scribed" the image of a sabre-toothed tiger on a piece of bone, but, so far as we know, he did not and could not. This was ages before other succeeding men walked "on glittering ice fields," and they, in turn, were ages earlier than the artistic Cromagnards of the Reindeer period.

The presence of men in the warm inter-Glacial times in Europe is proved by the association of rough but undisputed flint implements with the inter-Glacial animals and by the discovery of a most interesting human jaw (chinless, like that of the Neander men) in what is held to be a prÆ-Glacial deposit at Heidelberg. We have very little knowledge of Glacial and prÆ-Glacial man except well characterized flint implements and two skeletons, some detached limb bones, four or five jaws, and as many skulls. [2] But of post-Glacial PalÆolithic man we know the skeletons of the Cromagnard race, their sepulture, their decorative necklaces, and their bone and ivory carvings and engravings, and the coloured rock paintings and other work of earlier races (the Aurignacians, and others) belonging to successive epochs or eras, which have been discovered in caves in France, Spain, Belgium, and Austria. It was long after them that the Neolithic people appeared.

The preceding remarks will have made it clear that the engraved antler here figured was carved by a man who was not really at all primitive, although he lived probably between twenty and fifty thousand years ago. It will also have been made clear that hundreds of such engravings, more or less fragmentary, are known. Some are very skilful works of art, others of a much inferior quality. Many, however, show an astonishing familiarity with the animal drawn and a sureness of drawing which is not surpassed by the work of modern artists (see Chapter III). The interest of the particular engraved antler which I am describing is that it is the only carving of its age as yet discovered which is more than a drawing or sculpture of a single animal. It is a "picture" in the sense of being a composition. It is not, it is true, painted—it is engraved; but being a composition it is entitled to be called "the earliest picture in the world." Let me describe it a little more fully with the help of the illustrations.

The engraving has been made on a long cylindrical piece of the red deer's antler. It can hardly be considered as decorative, since the figures of the animals do not show as such on the cylindrical surface (Figs. 1 and 2). Pieces of antler, bone, and ivory carved with spiral scrolls and circles which are really decorative and effective as decoration are found in these caves (Fig. 29). But often such pieces as the present are met with. It has been discovered by French archÆologists that the true intent of such engravings may be rendered evident by rolling the cylinder on a plastic substance (soft wax or similar material), when the drawing is "printed off" or "developed" as it is termed. A great number of such line engravings have been thus printed off or developed, and plaster casts made from the flat impressions are preserved in the museum of St. Germain, the engraved lines being rendered obvious by letting them fill with printing ink. They often give us in this way a "printed" drawing of remarkable accuracy and artistic quality. The rolled-off print of our specimen is shown in Fig. 4. The cylinder has been damaged by time, but the print shows, more or less completely, a vigorous outline drawing of three red deer, with six salmon-like fish placed in a decorative way above them and between their legs. Two lozenge-shaped outlines (above the larger stag) are held by good authorities to be the signature of the artist. The group of deer is represented in movement. The largest stag is on the right; his hindquarters are broken away by injury to the cylinder. He is commencing to advance, and turns his head backwards to see what is the thing which has alarmed him and his companions; at the same time his mouth is open, and he is "blowing." The second stag is a younger and smaller animal, and is retreating more rapidly. The cylinder is damaged so that, although all the four legs of this second stag are preserved, the head and neck are gone, though the points of the antlers are preserved. The same damage has removed all but the hind legs of the still younger animal who heads the group. The beauty of the drawing of these hind legs and the extraordinary impression of graceful, rapid movement given by their hanging pose, side by side, is not surpassed, even if it be equalled, by the work of any modern draughtsman. It is clear that the youngest and smallest member of the group is, as is natural, the most timid, and that he has sprung off with a sudden bound on the occurrence of the alarm from the rear, which is setting the whole group into motion with increasing velocity as we pass from right to left.

The "printed-off," or "unrolled," or "developed" picture given in Fig. 3 is an exact reproduction of a copy of the cast made and preserved in the Museum of National Antiquities at St. Germain, for which I am indebted to my friend M. Salomon Reinach, the distinguished archÆologist who is the director of that museum. It is reproduced here, a little larger than half the size of the original, as are the representations of the carved cylinder itself (Figs. 1 and 2). In Fig. 4 we have my attempt to restore the damaged portions of the design and to present it as it was when the PalÆolithic man completed it some 20,000 years ago.

I will return to the question of the correctness of this restoration, but before doing so I wish to mention some extremely interesting points as to the probable use of the cylinder of stag's antler and the purpose of the carving around its axis. In the first place, this and a few other of the pieces of carving of the post-Glacial period were certainly the work of highly gifted and practised artists. It is obvious that this work is far superior both in conception and execution to the more or less clever, often grotesque, carvings and paintings made by modern savages or simple pastoral folk. There is no reason to suppose that the Cromagnards, or men of the post-Glacial or Reindeer period of West Europe, differed from modern races in being universally gifted with artistic capacity. This engraving of three stags is almost certainly the work of a man who belonged to a family or guild of picture-makers who had cultivated such work for centuries and handed it on from master to apprentice. This design is probably one which had been perfected by many succeeding observers and draughtsmen. Its sureness of line and vivacity of movement are not the outcome of the sudden inspiration of an untutored savage, but are the result of the growth, cultivation, and development of artistic perception and the power of artistic execution in successive generations.

It seems in the highest degree improbable, if not impossible, that so excellent a drawing as this should have been cut on the cylindrical piece of antler by an engraver who never saw the flat or rolled-off impress of his design. One is driven to the conclusion that he must, as he worked on the bone, have taken an impress of the growing picture from time to time, using probably animal fat and charcoal as an "ink" and printing on to a piece of prepared skin or on to a birch-bark cloth. How otherwise could he have made his engraving so truly that when, ages afterwards, we print it off the cylinder, we are astonished and delighted by its perfection of design and execution? If this be once admitted—namely, that the artist tested and checked his work by printing it off as he proceeded with it—we gain what appears to me to be the probable solution of the question which has been largely debated, "For what were these carved cylinders or rods used?" Those which are simple cylindrical rods, such as the present one, must be distinguished from others which have one or more circular holes bored in them and others which are curiously bent at an angle. Such specimens are often carved with small unimportant ornament, not requiring development or printing. They as well as the present class have been spoken of as "wands of authority" and "sceptres"; some are considered to be arrow straighteners; others have been supposed to be "divining rods" or "rods of witchcraft"; whilst one of those discovered by M. Piette (others similar to it are known) has been regarded as a "lance thrower" or "propulsor" (such as modern primitive races use), having a notch at one end upon which the lance to be thrown is made to rest. The latest suggestion as to these notch-and-hook-bearing rods, is that they are large crochet hooks used in making nets. It has also been suggested that some of these carved rods were used as "fasteners" of the skins used as clothing.

I venture to suggest that the elaborately carved cylinder which we are considering and others bearing similar carvings, which only show up when a printing of them is taken, were used by the men who made them for this very same "printing" as an end in itself. The picture could be thus impressed on skins, birch bark, and other material. This race was thoroughly familiar with the use of paint formed by mixing grease with charcoal (to produce black), red ochre (to produce red), yellow ochre (to produce yellow), and some preparation of limestone or chalk (to produce white). Coloured pictures representing animals of the chase, coloured with red, yellow, white, and black and outlined by engraving, have been discovered on the rock walls of the caves used by them. Such pictures are found of relatively early as well as of late date within the post-Glacial PalÆolithic period (see Chapter III). The rock picture of a single animal is usually from two to five feet long. People who could make those coloured designs and who could draw and compose so admirably as the author of the "Three Red Deer" would have desired to "roll off" and to possess printings of their favourite representations of animal life, whilst we must admit that their skill and ingenuity was assuredly equal to the task of so printing them. If this carving of the "Three Red Deer" were never printed it could not have been executed in the first place, nor seen and admired when completed. If even only half a dozen or a dozen impressions were taken from it for ornamenting the skins or other material used by a chief, or a wizard, or a woman, its production becomes intelligible. It is true that there is nothing known as to the use of such printing from a cylinder among existing primitive people, but it is known in very early times (4500 B.C.), since cylindrical seals were used by the Babylonians. Elaborately grooved blocks used for printing on cloth are known from Fiji and Samoa, and the mere practice of printing on to a flat surface is common enough among savage races in regard to the human hand, impressions or prints of which obtained by the use of a greasy pigment are found upon rocks or stones. Sometimes prints of the hand or fingers are taken in clay.

We must not, however, forget that the primary purpose of savage and primitive mankind in making images or engravings of animals is that of influencing the animals by witchcraft or magic, as has been urged by Reinach. From such magic-working drawings the art of savages has gradually developed just as religious figures and designs have been the initial motive of historic European art.

It seems in any case fairly certain that the artist who engraved our picture of the three deer on to the stag's antler must have worked from and copied a completed flat drawing, and probably printed it in some way on to the prepared antler before engraving its lines thereon and also checked the work, as he proceeded, by successive trial printings or "proofs" on to a flat surface. It is possible though it does not seem very probable, that the drawing was thus committed to perpetual invisibility on a cylindrical rod—for the purpose of exercising "magic" with that rod. It seems to me that the Cromagnard owner of the rod would have wished to see "what the picture really looked like," and so would have on some occasion and more than once have "printed it off" or as we say "unrolled it."

Leaving that question aside I have a few words to say as to the present attempted "completion" of the picture. My difficulty has been in realizing the suggestion of a free, graceful "bounding" action given by the pair of small hind legs which form all that remains of the smallest of the three deer. I have tried various poses of the calf indicated by these legs—bucking and jumping, and with fore legs closely bent to the horizontal or in a more open position. The fact is there is very little in existing drawings or photographs which can help us to a decision of the problem, "How did the prehistoric artist complete that exquisite little pair of hanging legs?" The problem is more obscure even than that of the pose of the arms of the Venus of Melos. One feels sure that the man who made this carving was an artist who must keep a certain rhythm and flow in the action and form of the three successive animals, and it is clear that he was a wonderful observer of the phases of the limbs in movement. It is, perhaps, a presumptuous thing to attempt on such a basis to recall the thought of a man who died twenty thousand years ago, but I set out to do so with the belief that there is a necessary figure determined by those hind legs.

Some years ago, as a step towards a solution of the problem, I published a "restoration" or "completion" of this picture in the "Field" (May 13th, 1911), and asked for criticisms and suggestions from the readers of that journal. I had no difficulty as to the completion of the biggest stag by drawing in his haunches and hind-legs, but the completion of the head and antlers of the smaller stag—and still more the calling into being of the entire calf as an inference from his or her suspended hind-feet and hoofs alone—were not easy tasks. I consulted many authorities and some instantaneous photographs, but I was not satisfied with the pose I finally suggested for the calf nor with the "points" assigned by my draughtsman to the antlers of the smaller stag. Some interesting suggestions were made in reply to my appeal by readers of the "Field." Those which seemed to me of conclusive weight and value were offered by Mr. Walter Winans, who combines the qualifications of a great observer of big game with those of a great artist. In the restoration now given in Fig. 5 I have profited by Mr. Walter Winans' criticism and have been especially glad to make use of the spirited sketch made by him for my benefit, and published in the "Field" of 1911, of a red-deer calf when hopping along with all the feet together, a movement known as "buck-jumping." "Of course," writes Mr. Winans, "this is quite different to the bronco-pony's action when trying to get rid of a rider. In the case of this kind she does not come down with a jar—but as she lands bends her knees and hocks simultaneously and then straightens them, also simultaneously, bounding in the air with bent back, tail curled tight on back, head thrown back, and ears forward; she never puts her fore-legs, either knee or fetlock, beyond her shoulder in this action." These words of Mr. Winans and his outline sketch of the buck-jumping calf precisely realize what the little hanging legs of the rubbed-out calf had been, as it were, urging my tired brain to recall and visualize. I am convinced that Mr. Winans' sketch gives the completion of the picture as drawn by the artist of the Lortet cavern, and satisfies the demand made by the gracefully suspended limbs shown in the incompletely preserved original. And so I have used it in my final restoration here given in Fig. 5.

The following letter by Mr. Winans, giving valuable comments on the Lortet picture, was published in the "Field," and will assist others in appreciating its significance: it enabled me to get the middle stag's antlers correctly drawn. I have omitted a few lines referring to defects in the original restoration—now corrected.

Sir,—As Sir Ray Lankester asks for criticism of this wonderful drawing of three deer, perhaps the following may be of interest. I have known deer all my life, and lived amongst them the last twelve years. I agree that the picture is wonderful—better than anything Landseer or Rosa Bonheur drew, because these latter were only artists: one can see by their pictures (full of faults as to attitudes and actions) that they knew nothing of deer. For instance, Landseer's stags were much too big in the body and their heads too small, and even the shape of their horns was conventional....

"The Lorthet drawings enable one to know all details about the three deer (looking at the original mutilated 'development'). First, the deer have 'got the wind' of an enemy, have come a long way, and are moving leisurely, the big stag, as usual, bringing up the rear and taking a last look round before the herd goes out of sight. The second is the younger stag who generally accompanies the big stag and acts as his sentinel when he is sleeping, a stag too small to give the big stag any jealousy as to his hinds. The third is undoubtedly a calf (Red deer are 'stags,' 'hinds,' and 'calves,' not 'does' and 'fawns'; the latter terms apply to Fallow deer and Roe-deer).

"The deer are typical Red deer, not Wapiti, except that the only tail showing (that of the middle deer) is the short Wapiti tail, not the longer tail of the Red deer, and the ears are shorter than those of any existing species of deer.

"The horns of the big stag are those of typical park Red deer, exactly like the Warnham Park big stag: brow, bay, and tray, with a bunch on top, and the horns are short and straight for their thickness.

"Now as to the short tail. I am trying, by crossing the Wapiti, Red deer, and Altai to get back to the original deer before the various species got separated, and my 'three-cross' deer show these very characteristics, as follows: Red deer or Warnham horns, short Wapiti tail, and the rather Roman nose which this 'development' print shows. The only difference is the short ears. Is it not possible that, as the artist is able to draw the horns in perspective and show the anatomy and proportions so well, that the ears are meant to be drawn fore-shortened?

"The stag's mouth is open because he is big and fat and is blowing (not roaring or bellowing). If it was the rutting season, when stags roar, the stag would be tucked up in the belly and have a tuft of hair hanging under the middle of it. He and the stag in front are moving in the real action (not the conventional action Rosa Bonheur and Landseer drew, but what the ancient Egyptians drew sometimes) of a slow, easy canter.... Now as to the middle stag's horns. I should give him, bearing in mind he is the small sentry stag, brow, tray, and three on top—a ten-pointer, the thin points showing in the original drawing indicating that he had thin horns—in fact, a three-year old.

"In a Scotch forest a ten-pointer is a comparatively old stag, but at Warnham and my place, where the feeding is good (and in my case there is hand feeding all the year round), a spike stag gets six points and can almost be a royal the next year.

"All this shows that the deer at the time this drawing was made must have had very good feeding and come to maturity quickly, like modern park deer. The big stag would never have allowed a ten-pointer in his herd if the latter had been an old stag.

"As to the action of the leading hind. I think she is a hind-calf by her legs, and is jumping with all four legs together, the way young deer do when playing, and, being young, is paying no attention to the danger behind, but is full of life, like a horse playing about when he is fresh. One often sees the calves of a herd playing like this if the herd is moving along steadily....

"From the position of the hind legs of the little calf I judge that she is jumping with all four legs together (the jump from which the expression 'buck jumping' comes); her tail would be curled up tight over her back like a pug dog carries it, only without the curl, and her ears pricked forward. The piece of horn broken off would show the rest of the hinds and calves, led by an old 'yeld' (i.e., barren) hind, who would be leading the herd up wind with her nose and ears forward to 'get the wind' of any danger ahead.

"The day is a hot one in the middle of August, shown by the big stag blowing and his being with the hinds, instead of with other stags by themselves, and by his not having 'run' yet, though his horns are clear of velvet. He is most likely the stag on whose horn this is engraved. The length of the deer's feet shows that they live on ground which is soft and not many stones about to wear down their toes.

"Maybe the fish indicate that the deer are crossing a shallow ford, and the salmon are getting frightened and jumping. The right-hand-most fish is just in the attitude of a hooked salmon trying to leap clear of the fly....

"The picture was most likely first drawn on some flat flexible surface, skin or bark, in a sticky medium, and then transferred to the horn by rolling it round the horn and then rubbing it. This would give a transfer, which would guide the subsequent engraving, otherwise it would be very difficult to engrave direct on the horn, and mistakes could not easily be corrected.

"Walter Winans

"Surrenden Park, Pluckley, Kent

With regard to the six fishes in the picture of "The Three Red Deer," I think that there can be little doubt that they are put in in the same spirit of exuberance which induced early Italian masters to introduce a cherub wherever a space for him could be found. The fish represented are the same in each case, and are undeniably salmonids. Presumably they are drawn on a larger scale than the deer. Their markings and the form of the head are deserving of some criticism and comment by those who are familiar with fish as seen by the fisherman. Probably the artist's friends at Lourdes captured fish in those days by spearing them with serrated bone-headed fish spears or harpoons (Fig. 3). No fish hooks of bone have been found in the cave of Lortet or in others of like age, although needles and whistles of bone and other useful little instruments, as well as serrated spear heads and harpoons have been obtained in several of them.

The tool used by the prehistoric man in engraving the cylinder of stag's antler was undoubtedly a suitable chipped-out piece of flint—a flint graving tool, in fact a "burin," such as are abundant in these caves.

Attention has been drawn by HÖrnes in his "History of Pictorial Art in Europe" to the resemblance of the Lortet picture to a fragment of a roughly painted vase of the Dipylon age (circa 800 B.C.) found at Tiryns and figured by Schliemann in his account of excavations made at that ancient MykenÆan fortress of the Peloponese. The fragment (Fig. 6) shows very roughly drawn figures of a man and of a horse. Between the fore and hind legs of the horse a large elaborately ornate fish is represented, reminding us of the fishes between the deer's legs in the Lortet picture. Two other similar fragments of pottery, showing a fish in this position, are recorded by Schliemann. The drawing is conventional and careless. It is of a debased decorative character, and is very far removed from the careful nature-true work of the Lortet cave-man. It is not possible to trace by any known line of transmission a connection between the engraving executed 20,000 years ago in the caves of the PyrÉnÉes and the figures rapidly knocked off in black paint on the Tiryns vase some 17,000 years later by the local dealers in cheap pottery. Yet we cannot avoid the suggestion that there is some connection between the two designs. For the Tiryns painting shows not only the curious upright fish between the horse's legs, but also diamond-shaped figures—one marked d in Fig. 6, another near the fish's tail, and another between the man's feet—closely resembling the pair of diamond-shaped figures engraved above the neck of the big stag in the Lortet picture (see Figs. 4 and 5). As we do not know what these diamond-shaped figures or "lozenges" are intended to signify in either case, we do not get, at present, beyond the bald fact of their coincidence. The Tiryns painting also shows (at s in Fig. 6) a "swastika" (see Chapter XVII), and below the man's arm a carelessly drawn bit of the ancient wave-fret or key-pattern. It is, of course, possible that the tradition of an ancient design—even dating so far back in origin as many thousands of years—may be preserved in the use made in the Tiryns decoration of the fish and the diamond-shaped lozenges, though associated with the swastika and the bit of wave-fret which are probably of later origin and are not known in the decorative work of the cave-men. The MykenÆan decorative assimilation of geese to the ship's barnacle exercised its influence over three thousand years and led to the mediÆval belief in the hatching of young geese from barnacles attached to floating timber, and even from the buds of trees (see my "Diversions of a Naturalist": Methuen, 1915). Nevertheless it must not be supposed that the connection of the Lortet engraving and the vase-painting of Tiryns is probable or more than a very remote possibility. The gap in time is too vast, and our present ignorance of what took place in that interval too complete, to warrant us in regarding the resemblance as more than a coincidence.