Thus the taste for adornment, so striking at the present day in the most savage as also in the civilized nations existed in the troglodytic tribes of the quaternary epoch. There are, moreover, numerous proofs of this fact. The fragments of necklaces, bracelets, etc., have been found in a great number of stations. In most cases marine shells, sometimes fossil and obtained from the tertiary beds, formed these ornaments. But the Cro-Magnon man combined with these the teeth of the large carnivora; he cut also with the same intention plates of ivory, certain soft or hard stones, and even made beads of clay which were merely dried in the sun. Finally, he tatooed himself, or at least painted his body with the oxides of iron or manganese, small stores of which have on several occasions been found in different stations, and which have left their mark upon the bones of some skeletons, for example, upon that of Mentone. V. The Cro-Magnon race has up to this point shown scarcely any superiority over the hunting tribes of America, unless perhaps it is in the dexterity which they displayed in flint cutting. But the artistic instincts which they showed almost from their first appearance, and the point to which they carried drawing and sculpture in the Madeleine age, gives them quite an exceptional position amongst those nations whose evolution has been arrested at the lowest stage of social life. The relative alleviation of climatic conditions, the diminution of large and ferocious animals involving the multiplication of useful species and especially that of the reindeer, placed at this epoch the Cro-Magnon man in conditions of welfare unknown to his predecessors. He profited by it in developing in a most unexpected manner his very superior talents. As a general rule the greater number of sculptures representing animals leave, it is true, much to be desired. We can indeed recognise the reindeer represented in high relief; nor would it be difficult to recognise as a mammoth the little carving made from the antler of the reindeer discovered at Montastruc. Nevertheless, these specimens would give but a poor idea of Magdalénean art. The ivory dagger-handles found by M. Peccadeau de l’Isle by the side of the mammoth fortunately confirm this impression. In both a reindeer is represented crouching, the legs bent, the head stretched out and the antlers lying along the body so as not to inconvenience the hand which should hold it. The attitudes are so natural, and the proportions so exact, that a decorative sculptor of the present day, in treating the same subject, could scarcely do better than copy his antique predecessor.