The succession of industries which I have just pointed out is, moreover, by no means invariable. As the investigations and discoveries increase in number, we are more and more impressed by the fact that the several colonies of the race under consideration, yielding to local necessities, or carried away by the accidents of their development, do not present an unintelligible uniformity. The last excavations carried out at Solutré by MM. Arcelin and the Abbé Ducrost, show arms and instruments of the Magdalénian type which are anterior to those of the Solutré type. In this epoch, as at the present time, there existed a certain diversity which explains the coincidence, in point of time, of different industrial types among this population of similar origin. III. The lighter, more trusty, and more varied weapons, announce a change in the life of our troglodytes. They continue, it is true, to hunt large game when it comes in their way; a few rare mammoths, surviving the climatic modifications which were going on, still fell under their hand; the horse also often contributed to their repast. The reindeer, however, largely predominated in the _débris_ of their kitchen. Mixed with them are found the remains of small mammals, such as the hare and the squirrel. Birds also began to be used for food to a considerable extent. From the bones discovered in the single grotto of Gourdan, so admirably explored by M. Piette, M. Alph. Edwards has been able to distinguish twenty distinct species. Lastly, the men of the Magdalénian age fed also upon fish; but fishing again was to them a kind of hunting. They evidently did not use the hook, and only harpooned the larger species, the salmon in Périgord, and the pike in the Pyrenees. The conveyance of the large animals which fell under their hand to their usual dwelling-place, would have been too much even for such stalwart hunters. They cut them up upon the spot, leaving only the skeleton of the trunk. We rarely find in the caves more than the bones of the head and limbs, which, again, are almost always broken. Like all savages, the troglodytes of the Vézère held the brain and marrow in high estimation. The long bones which enclosed the latter have evidently been split in a methodical manner, with a view to preserving the contents. MM. Lartet and Christy even think that a special implement was employed in eating these delicate morsels. A kind of spatula made from the antler of a reindeer, with a conical, richly carved handle, hollowed and rounded at the extremity, has been regarded by them as a _marrow spoon_.