POPULAR SCIENCE 91 



trees ; and the seashore. The rocks appear to have impressed 

 their conditions on the baboon and the Gibraltar monkey, and 

 these are not steps in the evolution of the apes. Wallace 

 thought the steppes were the scene, believing that " the seeds 

 of indigenous cereals were present, and the numerous herbivora 

 and game-birds would develop his skill as a hunter, trapper, 

 and fisherman." * But as I have tried to show in a recent 

 Paper contributed to the Manchester Philosophical Society, the 

 first that we know about the cereals is the discovery of wild 

 barley and millet by the proto-Egyptians in the Nile Valley less 

 than six thousand years ago. Further, because the little 

 primate had been able to catch birds asleep in the trees is no 

 evidence that he could do so on the ground. To do so he 

 would by analogy have been compelled to develop his sense 

 of smell as well as canine teeth after the manner of the fox. 

 As for fishing, nets and hooks or even traps are indications of 

 the work of a brain higher than that found in any mammal 

 except man, and the instinct of insects does not help us to 

 solve the puzzle, for instinct is not the beginning of wisdom. 



Next, the jungle where the gorilla lives to-day can hardly 

 have been the environment in which the apes and man were 

 evolved, and this for two reasons. First, the absence of nitro- 

 genous food was more marked in the Oligocene than now, and 

 even in the Australian scrub there is remarkably little to eat. 

 The Tasmanian and Australian blacks seldom went into the 

 heavy rainfall forests ; the Brazilian forest supports a human 

 population only in selected localities. Presumably the end 

 products, the orang, gorilla, and man, are better able to find 

 food than their ancestor was millions of years ago. Secondly, 

 the scrub country is unsafe. The three end products are com- 

 pelled to defend themselves, and in particular all primates 

 except man have developed an instinct against snakes, which 

 first appear in the Miocene. As the common ancestor did not 

 climb trees he would probably sleep in hollow logs at the foot 

 of the trees. The recession of the sense of smell is against 

 this hypothesis. Finally, if man was evolved in jungle country 

 he would have had an age-long struggle against mosquitoes 

 and similar forms, and therefore he would have become 

 immune to malaria, trypanosomes, dysentery, and many 

 allied diseases. 



Returning now to the seashore, we have seen that it is 

 marked by the two essentials, safety and abundant food. The 

 sands have been exploited by no mammal, an anomalous fact, 

 of which the probable explanation is the absence of movement 

 and scent in shellfish. Their recognition as food therefore 

 demanded some intelligence, and the way a primate, well 



^ Darwinism, 1889, p. 459. 



