From the uniform character of Palæolithic art in its highest forms of engraving, painting, and animal sculpture we may infer the probable unity of the Crô-Magnon race, especially throughout western Europe. During Magdalenian times various branches of art reached their highest point and were the culmination of a movement begun in the early Aurignacian. The artist, whose life brought him into close touch with nature and who evidently followed the movements both of the individual animals and of the herds for hours at a time, has rendered his observations in the most realistic manner. Among the animals represented are the bison, mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, wild cattle, deer, and rhinoceros; less frequent are representations of the ibex, wolf, and wild boar, and there are comparatively few representations of fishes or of any form of plant life; the nobler beasts of prey, such as the lion and the bear, are often represented, but there are no figures of the skulking hyæna, which at that time was a rare if not almost extinct animal. While many figures are of real artistic worth and reach a high level, others are more or less crude attempts; the composition of figures or of groups of animals is rarely undertaken. [Illustration: FIG. 178. Crude sculpture of the ibex, from the Magdalenian deposit at Mas d'Azil on the right bank of the Arize. After Piette. A little less than actual size.] The artistic sense of these people is also manifest in the decoration of their household utensils and weapons of the chase. Here the smaller animals of the chase, the saiga, the ibex, and the chamois, are executed with a sure hand. Sculpture of animal forms in the large, which begins in Solutrean times, is continued and reaches its highest point in the early Magdalenian. At this period the use of sculpture as a means of decoration arises and extends into the middle and late Magdalenian. These latter divisions are also distinguished by the reappearance of human figurines, nude, like the Aurignacian, and occasionally somewhat more slender. Thus it would appear that the artistic spirit, more or less dormant in Solutrean times, was revived.