50 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



• 

 hand to the other end, and nse it in the proper manner as 

 a lever. In the cases just mentioned stones and sticks 

 were employed as implements ; but they are likewise used 

 as weapons. Brehm 25 states, on the authority of the well- 

 known traveller Schimper, that in Abyssinia when the 

 baboons belonging to one species ( C. gelada) descend in 

 troops from the mountains to plunder the fields, they 

 sometimes encounter troops of another species ( G. hama- 

 dryas), and then a fight ensues. The Geladas roll down 

 great stones, which the Hamadryas try to avoid, and then 

 both species, making a great uproar, rush furiously 

 against .each other. Brehm, when accompanying the 

 Duke of Coburg-Gotha, aided in an attack with fire-arms 

 on a troop of baboons in the mss of Mensa in Abyssinia. 

 The baboons in return rolled so many stones down the 

 mountain, some as large as a man's head, that the at- 

 tackers had to beat a hasty retreat ; and the r5ass was 

 actually for a time closed against the caravan. It de- 

 serves notice that these baboons thus acted in concert. 

 Mr. Wallace 26 on three occasions saw female orangs, ac- 

 companied by their young, " breaking off branches and 

 the great spiny fruit of the Durian-tree, with every ap- 

 pearance of rage; causing such a shower of missiles as 

 effectually kept us. from approaching too near the tree." 



In the Zoological Gardens a monkey which had weak 

 teeth used to break open nuts with a stone ; and I was 

 assured by the keepers that this animal, after using the 

 stone, hid it in the straw, and would not let any other 

 ' monkey touch it.- Here, then, we have the idea of prop- 

 erty ; but this idea is common to every dog with a bone, 

 and to most or all birds with their nests. 



The Duke of Argyll n remarks, that the fashioning of 



25 ' Thierleben,' B. i. s. 79, 82. 



26 'The Malay Archipelago,' vol. i. 1869, p. 87. 

 21 ' Primeval Man,' 1869, pp. 145, 147. 





