Hoffmann’s able study of the Eskimos not only brings out these similarities, but also specially notes the closeness with which they observe and the exactitude with which they render anatomical peculiarities of fish and animals. As portrayers of the human form, on the other hand, they must be reckoned far from expert. The caves of France and those of Spain in general, although the _paintings_ of the human form at Calapata and other places are far more finished and far more frequent than the French drawings, disclose curiously the same power and the same deficiency as characteristic of Troglodyte art.[21] No race probably in the world depends so greatly on fishing for a livelihood as the Eskimos. From them, if from any, we should derive most light and leading. With them the Spear and the Hook form the chief, and till recently probably the only, tackle. Nets, on account of the ice, play little part. To any claim for precedence of the former over the latter, a champion of the Net demurs on the ground of climatic conditions, which he not unreasonably urges prevent any proper analogy in this respect being drawn between them and our Cave Men. Touching the similarity of the Tasmanian to the Troglodyte, Ling Roth amplifies, especially as regards the material, etc. of the Spear, the evidence contained in Tylor’s already quoted sentence. This in conjunction with Captain Cook’s earlier statement that the Tasmanians, while experts with the Spear, were ignorant of the use of a Hook, and, according to Wentworth, of a Net, would have gone far in helping our quest and in establishing the precedence of the Spear. Unfortunately the evidence of Lloyd and others that these aborigines speared fish as a pastime, coupled with the fact that while they consumed _crustaceæ_ they abstained (probably from reasons of tabu or totem) from eating scaled fish, sharply differentiates their _Kultur_ from that of our prehistoric fishermen “at whose bellies hunger was gnawing.”[22] From Mexico, and especially from the representations in Yucatan, I had hoped for new factors helping to solve our problem. First, because these had so far escaped the meticulous examination of the Madelainian, and second, because they were the product of an ancient people, the Mayas, who ranked fish as an important item of their diet, and pursued fishing with the Spear and the Net.[23] With the Aztecs, who in the thirteenth century inherited the Maya culture, now dated as regards their architecture back to the first three centuries A.D.,[24] the hook arrives, or rather appears. Aztec skill in fishing stands well attested. Their artificial fishponds or _vivaria_, and the importance which they attached to fish as a food extract favourable comment from Cortez.[25] In spite of the pictographs, known as the Mendoza Codex,[26] being executed several centuries after the date I have roughly allotted myself, _viz._ 500 A.D., I cannot resist inserting two of these on account of their fourfold interest.