This most ancient example of imitative art was found in the Madelaine Cave, on the river Vézère, by M. Lartet, when in company with M. Verneuil and Dr. Falconer. The circumstances of the discovery, therefore, no less than the character of the explorers, place its genuineness beyond suspicion. Its worth is great as a piece of contemporary portraiture of an animal known to us only by its fossil remains. But this sinks into insignificance in comparison with its value as a gauge of the intellectual capacity of the men of the reindeer age of central Europe. Many of their carvings ornament the horn or ivory handles of implements and weapons; but the etching referred to was manifestly executed with no other aim than the gratification of the artistic taste of the draughtsman, and resembles the free sketches thrown off by an artist in an idle hour. [Illustration: FIG. 38.—The Mammoth, engraved on ivory.] But there is another point worthy of notice here, the interest of which is greatly increased by the undoubted antiquity of the relic. This palæographic tablet is a right-handed drawing; and the same may be affirmed of the group of reindeer, and of others of the Madelaine etchings. They are executed in profile, looking to the left, as any right-handed draughtsman naturally does, unless he has some special reason for deviating from the direction which the facility of his pencil suggests. The question of right-handedness, as a natural or acquired practice peculiar to man, has a special interest when viewed in relation to his innate instincts or attributes in the remote dawn of human intelligence thus anew brought to light. The universality of right-handedness as a characteristic of man has been assumed, partly on the concurrent evidence of language, which shows the general habit of using one hand in preference to another. But the prevalence of the use of the right hand among savage nations is still a mere assumption. The statistics have yet to be collected, and are by no means readily accessible. Any evidence of the prevalence of right-handedness among a people still in the primitive stage of stone implements must be exceedingly vague. In the rude manipulations of a purely savage life, with the imperfection of the tools and the general absence of combined operations, the distinction in the use of one hand rather than the other is of little importance. In digging roots, climbing rocks or trees, in the rude operations of the primitive boat-maker or hut-builder, in hunting, flaying, cooking, or most other of the operations pertaining not only to the hunter, but even to the pastoral stage, there is little manifest motive for the use of one hand more than the other; and on the supposition of either becoming more generally serviceable, it would neither attract notice, nor interfere in any degree with the arts of life, though some gave a preference to the right hand, and others to the left. Hence the