The general assemblage of the Mammalian remains collected at Aurignac, shows that the Carnivora, in number of species, were almost equal to the Herbivora. Subjoined are lists of both, with an approximate valuation of the number of individuals referrible to each species.

Among the Carnivora, Felis spælea was represented only by a single canine and a premolar bearing the mark of a fracture caused by some violence. From this it may be presumed that the body of the animal was never conveyed to the spot, and that the teeth had been brought with a special intention, and the rather so because both were collected within the sepulchre, and one of them (the canine sent to M. Leymerie) beyond (à travers) the human bones at the first discovery of the place by Bonnemaison.

As the two molars of the Elephant are also the only relics of that species, their being brought by man to the place where they were found, may also be referred to some customary purpose. And the same may be said of the two incisors of the Wild Boar, likewise the only relics of that species discoverable among such a considerable heap of bones.

In the lower grotto of Massat, another ancient station, where man has left numerous relics of his feasts, the Boar is also represented only by a single molar. Certain nations of antiquity had, at an early epoch, a marked repugnance to the N. H. R.-1862.

F

I have omitted to enumerate in the list of Herbivora two halfjaws of a Field Mouse (Campagnol), and the calcaneum of a Hare, which may have been accidentally introduced independently of human agency.

It is well known that an aversion to the flesh of the Hare, is still more general than that against pork. The Hare was regarded as impure by several of the nations of antiquity. Cæsar (De Bell. Gallic. lib. v. c. 12) states that among the inhabitants of Britain the use of its flesh as food was forbidden.* The Laplanders at the present day always regard it with horror, and among several nations of our part of Europe the flesh of the Hare is still despised. The remains of the Hare and Rabbit are very abundant in the ossiferous breccias and in many of the caves in the Pyrenees; but I have met with no traces of their existence in the lower grotto of Massat, nor have their remains been noticed in other caverns which appear to have been inhabited exclusively by man. The bones of

the Hare are not mentioned among those of the numerous animals recognized in the Danish Kitchen-middens,+ nor have any been found below the lacustrine habitations of Switzerland belonging to the various ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron.

With respect to the Horse, it appears from the broken and comminuted state of his bones, resembling that in which those of the ruminants are found, that his flesh entered largely into the food of the aborigines of Aurignac. Nevertheless, at Massat, a station a little less ancient, the bones of the Horse are entirely absent, whilst in the cavern of Bise, which was used as a habitation by man at a period when the Reindeer still lived in the south of France, the broken bones of the Horse were, according to M. Tournal, equally abundant with those of the ruminants. The Sarmatians, says an ancient historian, were distinguished from other nations, and in particular from the Celts, by their taste and predilection for the blood and flesh of the Horse, and for Mare's milk. The Horse is wanting in the Stone age in Switzerland and in Denmark. Nevertheless, in Switzerland, in the 10th century of our era, horse-flesh was served at the table of the monks of St. Gall, at a period, when amongst other European nations its use as food was forbidden under pain of excommunication.

flesh of the Wild Boar or of the Pig. Their flesh, it is well known, was excluded from the diet of the Egyptians and of the Jews, who, nevertheless, had domesticated the species. The Scythians, according to Herodotus, abstained from the flesh of the Hog, and the Gallo-Greeks held it in equal aversion. How can the fact be explained, then, that the ancient Gauls, who had affinities with both those people, used pork as a considerable part of their food? Observations made in the ancient stations of the aborigines of Denmark, and beneath the lacustrine habitations of the Stone period in Switzerland, have shown that those primitive races also fed largely upon the flesh of the Wild Boar.

[Though he states, nevertheless, that the Britons bred the Hare, Fowl, and Goose, though forbidden to use them as food, “animi, voluptatisque causâ.”] [t Vid. Nat. Hist. Rev. 1861, p. 489.]

The Rhinoceros appears also to have been eaten by the Pyrenean aborigines. Some molar teeth, and a certain number of bones belonging to a young individual, were found at Aurignac in the layer of earth above the ashes. All the vertebræ and the spongy parts of the long bones had disappeared, devoured without doubt by the Hyænas; but the thick and compact portions of the shafts of the long bones were left. They are broken in the same manner as those of the other Herbivora, and several fragments still bear the traces of cutting instruments. Another proof, moreover, that when the carcase of this young Rhinoceros was brought there, it had been recently slain, is afforded by the circumstance that its bones, after they had been broken by man, had afterwards been gnawed by the Hyenas, which would not have been the case had they not been still fresh and filled with their gelatinous juices.*

The rarity of the common Deer and of the Irish Elk, represented at Aurignac, each by the remains of a single individual, might be explained perhaps by the great abundance of those of the Reindeer. We know that in a wild state, antipathies exist between certain closely allied species, or sometimes between species belonging to the same genus, which lead them to inhabit perfectly distinct districts.

The Aurochs and the Reindeer, then, are the species which have figured the most often in the feasts of whose relics we find only what was spared by the Hyænas. The situation of the hearth, on a platform overlooking the valley and stream of the Rode, allow also of the supposition that a great part of the bones might have been thrown to the bottom of the valley, whence they would afterwards be removed by the current of water, or decomposed by atmospheric agencies.

The long bones of these ruminants, so rich in marrow, have all been broken for its extraction. Not one has been forgotten; every bone, down to the first phalanges of the Stags and Reindeer, which, like the long bones, contain a medullary cavity, has been carefully opened. But the way in which this has been done is neither so methodical nor so elegant as that noticed in the Danish kitchenmiddens, the bones in which have all been split with remarkable dexterity, in such a way as to expose, at a single blow, the whole of the marrow they contained: as may be seen for instance in the cannon-bone, or metatarsus, of the Aurochs, and of the Deer. At Aurignac, as well as at Massat, this mode of fracture is rather rare,

Several African nations eat the flesh of the Rhinoceros, and amongst others the Hottentots. "The Shangallas," says Bruce, "are very fond of its flesh, although it is very hard, almost tasteless, and with a strong musky smell; the most delicate part in their estimation is the sole of the foot, which like that of the Elephant and Camel, is of a cartilaginous and soft substance." According to M. Boitard (Dict. Univ. d'Hist. Nat.) the Indians hunt the Rhinoceros for their horns, and to eat their flesh. The Chinese are of opinion that after swallows-nests, the eggs of the lizard, and puppies, there is nothing so delicate as the tail of the Rhinoceros, and a kind of jelly made from the skin of its belly.

and, in general, badly executed. This may be owing perhaps to the want of appropriate tools, which have not been found at either place, whilst the Danish aborigines were provided with them in abundance. At Aurignac, therefore, and also at Massat, the long bones are rarely split longitudinally; sometimes the ends have been broken off, but more often the bones appear in some way to have been broken and reduced to fragments by blows from a stone; and in these two situations we have found, in the neighbourhood of the remains of the banquet, the blocks and pebbles, which may have served for this operation.

It may be asked, how is it, that with arms in appearance so inefficient as those we have described, the aborigines of ancient Aquitania ventured to attack animals of the size of the Great Cave Bear, Rhinoceros, &c. ?*

It may be presumed, that, like the ancient Germani spoken of by Cæsar, the primitive inhabitants of the Pyrenees were acquainted with the art of constructing snares for these great animals, and of catching them in pits, concealed under the leaves and branches of trees. And besides this, their accurate knowledge of the most vulnerable points in the bodies of the animals, and the precision of their aim, either with the arrow or dart, might to a certain extent compensate for the imperfection of their rude weapons.†

Such is the general statement of the observations it was possible to make during the complete and careful exploration of the Aurignac station. The circumstances to which they relate are complex; and their succession also indicates a considerable lapse of time. The first traces of living creatures met with in the loose and, speaking geologically, comparatively recent deposits, are those of man, proving that he had made a fireplace on the platform outside the little cave, whilst the thickness of the layer of ashes upon this site shows that it was inhabited for a long time, or, at any rate, that it was frequently visited.

The complete absence of any trace of fire in the interior of the grotto, and the state of comparative preservation of the bones found

* In spite of all the attention which I have devoted to the examination of the bones found at Aurignac, and to the other circumstantial evidences afforded at that place, I have failed to detect the faintest indication of the existence of the Dog, that habitual companion of man in the chase, in all climates and in every state of barbarism. Under the piles belonging to the stone age in Switzerland, the remains of a diminutive race of Dogs have been met with. In studying the fauna of the Danish kitchen-middens, Prof. Steenstrup has satisfied himself, from the way in which certain bones have been gnawed, that the Dog must have been the latest companion of the aborigines, and he has even found reason to believe it may sometimes have been eaten by them. At Massat (Ariége), a station far more recent than that of Aurignac, I have myself fancied that I could perceive indications of the presence of the Dog, from the way in which some of the herbivorous bones had been gnawed.

†The Shangallas, according to Bruce, kill the Rhinoceros with the worst arrows it is possible for a people making use of arms at all to have; and they flay it afterwards with knives no better than their arrows.

therein, denote that the cave, closed against all access from the exterior, must have been consecrated to human burials.

The fragmentary condition of the bones of certain animals, the mode in which they are broken, the marks of the teeth of the Hyæna on bones necessarily broken in their recent condition, even the distribution of the bones and their significant consecration, lead to the conclusion that the presence of these animals, and the deposition of all these remains, are due solely to human agency. Neither the inclination of the ground, nor the surrounding hydrographical conditions, allow us to suppose that the remains could have been brought where they are found by natural causes.

The large amount of the remains of animals which had served as human food, and their presence at different levels, would indicate that successive assemblages had gathered at this spot. These assemblages probably took place on each occasion of the burial of the various individuals interred in the grotto. And it is highly probable also that the station ceased to be frequented when the sepulchral cave, being fully tenanted, would no longer afford space for further inhumations.

The gentle and prolonged action of simple atmospheric agencies, would be sufficient, in course of time, to account for the detachment of fragments from the escarpment of the adjacent rock, and the gradual accumulation of loose fallen earth, by which the site of the fire-place outside, and the slab closing the opening of the sepulchral cave, would be entirely covered.

The antiquity of the sepulchre cannot be ascertained either from tradition or history, nor from numismatic data, no document of this kind relating to it having been met with.

Regarding the subject archæologically, we perceive, in the absence of any kind of metal, and the common employment of implements and weapons of flint and bone, sufficient indications that the station of Aurignac should be referred to that ancient period of prehistoric times, denominated by antiquaries of the present day,—the age of Stone.

Palæontologically, the human race of Aurignac belongs to the remotest antiquity, to which, up to the present time, the existence of man or the vestiges of his industry have been traced. This race, in fact, was evidently contemporary with the Aurochs, Reindeer, Gigantic Elk, Rhinoceros, Hyæna, &c.; and, what is more, with the Great Cave Bear (U. spelaus), which would appear to have been the earliest to disappear in the group of great mammals, generally regarded as characteristic of the last geological period.*

But, it will be said, how does it happen, if the sepulchre of

The chemical examination by M. Delesse of the Aurignac bones, furnishes a further excellent means for determining the question of contemporaneity. The respective analyses which he has made demonstrate that the bones of the Reindeer, Rhinoceros, Aurochs, &c. have retained precisely the same proportion of nitrogen, as the human bones from the same locality.