e Australians, and the
Californian Indians--with which, however, it is instructive to compare
them. Many of them agree in their essential artistic character with
the carving and engraving of animals on bone and ivory so abundantly
produced by the later Reindeer men. It is also the fact that these
Franco-Spanish wall paintings were executed at different periods in
the Reindeer epoch. Some are more primitive than others; some are very
badly preserved, mere scratched outlines with all the paint washed
away by the moisture of ages; but others are bright and sharp in their
colouring to a degree which is surprising when their age and long
exposure are considered. The French prehistorians, M.M. Cartailac and
the Abbe Breuil, have produced a sumptuous volume containing an
account, with large coloured plates, of the best preserved of the
Altamira paintings--a copy of which I owe to the kindness of H.S.H.
the Prince of Monaco, who has ordered the publication of the work at
his own charges. This has been followed by an equally fine work under
the same auspices, illustrating the wall-pictures of the Cavern of the
Font-de-Gaume in the Dordogne, for which we have to thank the Abbe
Breuil. A further volume on Spanish Caves has also appeared from the
same source in the present year. It is not surprising that the country
folk, who, in some of the Spanish localities, have known the existence
of these paintings from time immemorial, should regard them as the
work of the ancient Moors, all ancient work in Spain being popularly
attributed to the Moors, as a sort of starting-point in history. It
is, however, very remarkable that little damage appears to have been
done by the population to the paintings, even when they exist in
shallow caves or on overhanging rocks. No doubt weathering, and the
oozing of moisture, and the flaking caused by it, has destroyed most
of the Pleistocene paintings which once existed, and it is an
ascertained fact that some--for instance, those of Altamira--are
breaking to pieces owing to the opening-up and frequentation of the
caverns.

It has been remarked that, although these paintings belong to what is
called the "reindeer epoch," yet in the cave of Altamira there are no
representations of reindeer, but chiefly of bison and wild boar. It is
also remarkable that in the case of the painted rock shelters of
Calapata (Lower Aragon) and of Cogul (near Lerida, in Catalonia), no
reindeer are represented; but on the for