(_A QUESTION FOR THE NEXT ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSEMBLY._)

["When we consider the vast amount of time comprised in
the Tertiary period ... the chances that man as at present
constituted, should be a survivor from that period seem
remote, and against the species _Homo Sapiens_ having existed
in Miocene times almost incalculable."--_Address of the
President of the Anthropological Section, Dr. John Evans, at
the Leeds Meeting of the British Association_.]

When then did _Homo Sapiens_ first appear?
Upon whose speculations shall we bottom us?
Contemporary he with the cave bear,
But hardly with the earliest hippopotamus.
The happy Eocene beheld him not;
That cheerful epoch when a morning ramble
Among the mammoths, without gun or shot,
Must have been such a truly sportive scramble.
The pleasant Pliocene preceded him.
Apparently, poor bare, belated _Homo_;
His spectre seems to haunt, despondent, dim,
Lakes--how unlike Killarney, Wenham, Como!--
Where dens called Dwellings may have left some trace.
Before "quarternary times "--whatever _they_ were--
_Homo_ appears not to have shown his face.
And then its features far from gracefully gay were.
So EVANS, who the mystery of Man's birth
Into our Cosmos carefully unravels.
He seems to view with sceptical calm mirth,