678 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Oceans, they were very mucli such, savages as the present inhabit- 

 ants of Tierra del Fuego, and lived after the same fashion. Like 

 the Fuegians, they were probably divided into small clans, each 

 of a few families, and these, from conflicting interests and other 

 causes, would be constantly at war. The earlier palaeolithic sav- 

 ages, living in caves and rock shelters, would be even more isolated 

 and uncompromising in their treatment of strangers, for the 

 game of any given district would only be sufficient to support a 

 few. If in our day 



" Lands intersected by a narrow frith 

 Ablior each other, mountains interposed 

 Make enemies of nations," 



in the time of palseolithic and early neolithic man every district 

 the size of an English parish would be the hunting-ground of a 

 clan, with fierce enemies on every side. In such a state of affairs 

 a stranger (unless he were safely tied to a stake) would be a most 

 undesirable person in proximity to the wigwam and the pica- 

 ninnies. 



If he paid a call it would very likely be — in the scarcity of 

 other game — with the purpose of carrying off a tender foe for 

 table use. Under such circumstances the child who ran to its 

 mother, or fled into the dark recesses of the cave, upon first spying 

 an intruder would be more likely to survive than another of a 

 more confiding disposition. Often, during the absence of the men 

 on a hunting expedition, a raid would be made, and all the women 

 and children that could be caught carried away or killed. The 

 returning warriors would find their homes desolate, and only those 

 members of their families surviving who, by chance or their own 

 action, had escaped the eyes of the spoilers. On the approach of 

 an enemy — and " stranger " and " enemy " would be synonymous — 

 the child which first ran or crawled to its mother, so that she could 

 catch it up and dash out of the wigwam and seek the cover of the 

 woods, might be the only one of all the family to survive and leave 

 offspring. Naturally the instinct which caused the child to turn 

 from the stranger to the mother would be perpetuated ; and from 

 the frequency of the habit at the present day it seems probable 

 that many of our ancestors were so saved from destruction. We 

 must remember that the state of society in which such occurrences 

 would be frequent lasted many thousand years, and that probably 

 scarcely a generation was exempt from this particular and unpleas- 

 ant form of influence. 



When we bear in mind that the play of young animals is 

 almost always mimic war, it is well worthy of note how very early 

 young children will take to the game of " hide and seek.'^ I have 

 seen a child of a year old who, with scarcely any teaching, would 



