A study of these warrants, to my mind, the conclusion that only two weapons can be traceably attributed to Palæolithic Man. First and pre-eminent the Spear (or Harpoon with its various congeners) with possibly adjustable flint-heads, and second, but to a far less extent, the Gorge, or as it has been better termed, “the bait-holder.” Of a Troglodyte Net no representation exists, no specimen survives. The absence of an actual specimen can perhaps be explained by the perishable nature of the fibres or wythes used for its construction. The undeniable survival of pieces of Nets among the lake dwellers seems somewhat to negative the explanation.[48] But these may have survived because of the presence, while those of the Palæolithic Age may have perished because of the absence of some preservative power in the substance in which they were embedded. The absence from the latter and the presence in the former _débris_ of Net sinkers, etc., strongly, if not conclusively, corroborate Broca’s conclusion that the Cave men of the Vézère Valley and elsewhere were strangers to the Net. We possess, in my opinion, no evidence of Hooks (as distinct from Gorges) or of anything resembling Hooks _proper_—_viz._ hooks made out of one piece, recurved, and with sharpened ends—being used by the Old Stone Man. De Mortillet, it is true, writing in 1867,[49] states that “hooks belonging to the reindeer epoch have been found in the Caves of Dordogne. Along with those of the simple form (the gorges) others were met with of much more perfect shape.” In his later work (_op. cit._) of 1890 he contents himself with claiming the existence of a hook, but of very primitive type, “a small piece of bone tapered at either end”—in fact, nothing more than the Gorge.[50] S. Reinach, again, instances “three fish-hooks,” but whittles them away till they become “two sharp points more in the nature of a gorge.”[51] Osborne, commenting on the numerous pigmy flints discovered in the Tardenoisian _débris_, writes that “it would appear that a large number of these were adapted for insertion in small harpoons, or that those of the grooved form might even have been used as fish-hooks.”[52] With the opinion of Christy (co-explorer with Lartet of La Madelaine) that those pointed bone rods or gorges “may have formed part of fish-hooks, having been tied to other bones or sticks obliquely,”[53] the evidence in favour of the Hook practically finishes. The case, I venture to maintain, breaks down. And this, too, in spite of the view expressed and the evidence adduced by so eminent an authority as Abbé H. Breuil, and in spite of the _gravure de Fontarnaud figurant un poisson mordant_ (?)—the query is Breuil’s—_à l’hameçon_. The _gravure_ fails to convince, chiefly because _les hameçons_ figured do not recurve in the proper sense. They seem to be more in the nature of _gorges_ curved back and much improved in the course of generations.[54]