12
NOTE.
It would occupy too much time to continue the curious experiences I have had
with workmen regarding Paleolithic matters, otherwise I could prolong these
humorous notes through several hours.
In conclusion, I should like to say that grotesquely ignorant ideas are by no
means confined to the simple-minded labouring men. I know a large town
museum in the western midland counties where a collection of arrow-heads and
polished celts are labelled "Palaeolithic," and where the printed description of
the catalogue is a more grotesque travesty of facts than "petrified duck's
head." When such want of information is shown at headquarters, why should a
man be laughed at for taking a "petrified black and white bull-terrier bitch"
to the Bethnal Green Museum? A few years ago I read some notes before
the Anthropological Institute on Palaeolithic implements from the valley of the
Axe, near Exeter ; at the same meeting I exhibited a large and superb collection
of highly-finished weapons and tools from the Chert gravels of Chard. The
implements were some of the finest and best ever found in that or any other
place. Soon after my paper was read, a second paper, a kind of counterblast, on
the same subject was laid before the Victoria Institute, and printed, "On the sup-
posed human implements from the Valley of the Axe," by Mr. Whitley. The
author of this paper was not present when my paper was read at the Anthropo-
logical Institute, and he had never seen the stone weapons and tools I exhibited.
The officers of the Institute did not inform me that a counter paper was going to
be read, neither did the author, or I would have taken some of the "supposed"
implements for the personal examination of the Victoria Instituters. Mr. Whitley
implied that all the tools were natural forms, and printed, through the Victoria
Institute, the word "implements" in inverted commas.
One of the richest jokes in reference to Paleolithic matter is that some good-
meaning people think that, if a man believes in the remote antiquity of the human
race, he must of necessity be an irreligious, if not wicked and vicious man. Each
time when my articles were printed on "Nature" about ancient stone implements,
I received tracts by post of the most milk-and-water character—probably sent by
good-meaning old ladies. I also had a personal visit from a man who called
himself a "converted soldier." At some scientific field meetings tract distributors
have been sent to give tracts to the poor deluded geologists.
There is no more grotesque joke than the idea possessed by some good religious
people that men of science are irreligious and have no reverence for Nature, or
the Author of Nature. When people become more generally enlightened, they will
find that the more they know of the "earth, and the fulness thereof," the more
they will reverence the mystery and majesty of all created things as displayed
before us on the earth, the sky, the air, and the waters.
WORTHINGTON G. SMITH.
Long-tailed Duck at Southend.—I send you a duck which has just been
shot by Mr. J. M. Burton, Durham, at Southend, and should be glad to know the
name of it, as it appears to be rather an uncommon one.—E. Burton, Durham,
in the "Field," November 19th, 1887 (vol. lxx., page 778). [The bird sent is an
immature long tailed duck (Harelda glacialis, L ) It is a bird of strictly oceanic
habits, breeding a long way north of the British Islands, not nearer than the
Faerors and Iceland, where it is common, and is only seen here as an autumn and
winter visitor to our shores. Several instances of its recent occurrence having
been reported to us, we should be inclined to regard the circumstance as indica-
tive of severe weather in the north.—Ed. "Field."]