Not to inquire too closely into the vague stories of these prehistoric men, not to differentiate too exactly between Cro-Magnards and Grimaldis, we at least know a few things about the late Palæolithic people, and one indicative fact is that they had a leaning toward paint. They buried their dead after painting the body, and they also painted the weapons and ornaments that were interred with him. It is owing to this addiction to paint that scientists have been enabled to learn so much of primordial life, for the pigments of black, brown, red, yellow and white still endure in the caves of France and Spain. And, since it is known that they painted their own faces and bodies we can scarce help deducing that they presented grotesque appearances and moved their fellows to laughter. But any earnest thinker or student is very likely to get out of his subject what he brings to it, at least, in kind. And so, archæologists and antiquarians, being of grave and serious nature, have found no fun or humor in these early peoples,--perhaps, because they brought none to their search. It remains, therefore, for us to sift their findings, and see, if by a good chance we may discover some traces of mirth among the evidential remains of prehistoric man. It would not be, of course, creative or even intentional humor, but since we know he was a clever mimic, we must assume the appreciation of his mimicry by his fellows. Moreover, he was deeply impressed by his dreams, and it must have been that some of those dreams were of a humorous nature. We are told his mentality was similar to that of a bright little contemporary boy of five. This theory would give him the power of laughter at simple things and it seems only fair to assume that he possessed it. In the beginnings of humanity there was very close connection between man and the animals. Not only did man kill and eat the other animals, but he cultivated and bred them, he watched them and studied their habits. It is, therefore, not surprising that man’s earliest efforts at drawing should represent animals. The earliest known drawings, those of the Palæolithic men show the bison, horse, ibex, cave bear and reindeer. The drawing at first was primitive, but later it became astonishingly clever and life-like. Also, among these primitive peoples, there was some attempt at sculpture, in the way of little stone or ivory statuettes. These incline to caricature, and are probably the first dawning of that tendency of the human brain. Yet the accounts of these earliest men show little that can be definitely styled humorous, and while we cannot doubt they possessed a sense of mirth, they have left us scant traces of it, or else the solemn archæologists have overlooked such. The latter may be the case, for a scholar with a sense of humor, Thomas Wright, declares as follows: