Oldfield, for example, tells how a large coloured engraving of a native of New Holland was shown to some Australians. “One declared it to be a ship, another a kangaroo, and so on, not one of a dozen identifying the portrait as having any connection with himself.”[82] The artistic faculty is unquestionably hereditary. There are artistic families and artistic races. But if so, the pictorial skill of the palæolithic cave-dwellers of Western Europe was not transmitted to their successors. Guided not only by a comparison of their tools and weapons with those of the Neolithic period, but also by cranial and other physical evidence, we are led to assume the absence of affinity between the men of the Perigord caves and the greatly more modern races of Europe’s later Stone period; and their lack of the imitative faculty, so characteristic of the elder race, adds confirmation to this opinion. Artistic sympathies, and a capacity for high achievements in painting and sculpture, are neither the direct results of civilisation, nor in many cases the product of culture and training. From the days of Giotto, the shepherd boy, to those of Thorwaldsen, Wilkie, and Turner, art-power is not only seen to be a direct and exceptional gift of nature, but it is frequently the product of a singularly partial intellectual development. Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo are examples of men of rare and comprehensive genius, who sought in art the form in which to give expression to their many-sided powers. But, on the other hand, instances are not rare of artists like Thorwaldsen or Turner, who, except within the range of their own special art, seemed exceptionally defective in the exercise of ordinary mental powers. The same is true of races as of individuals. Some show an aptitude for art wholly wanting in others, who nevertheless equal or surpass them in more important qualities. The æsthetic faculty may, indeed, be described as curiously capricious in its manifestations. The Papuans of New Guinea and of New Caledonia, a race of Negrillos, in some points presenting analogies to the Australian, are nevertheless remarkable for a seemingly instinctive ingenuity and aptitude for art. Mr. Wallace describes them as contrasting with the Malay race in the habitual decoration of their canoes, houses, and almost every domestic utensil, with elaborate carving. The Fijians, who are allied to this Negrillo race, present in many respects an unfavourable contrast to the true Polynesian. In their physiognomy and whole physical aspect they are inferior to other island races of the Pacific; and are further notable for repulsive habits and a general condition of social and moral degradation. But their ferocity and the cruel customs in which they so strikingly differ from the Malays are vices of a vigorous race. They have frequently been observed to indicate energy capable of being directed to useful ends, as has been