328 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
the first university, has done and is doing for man: ,“ Among the ani- 
mals, there is scarcely one that has not obtruded itself into the imagina- 
tions of men and stimulated the inventive faculty. The bears were the 
first cave-dwellers ; the beavers are old-time lumberers ; the foxes exca- 
vated earth before there were men; the squirrels hid away food for the 
future, and so did many birds, and the last named were also excellent 
architects and builders ; the hawks taught men to catch fish, the spiders 
and caterpillars to spin (and make nets), the hornet to make paper, and 
the cray fish to work in clay.” (Amer. Anthr., Vol. VII., p. 144). It 
might be added that the first bridge was a fallen tree, the first elevator 
a climbing vine, the first fish-hook a thorn, the first cup a leaf, a fruit- 
rind or a shell, the first knife a stone. The mythology and folk-lore of 
invention are full of data of nature-study, its variety is inexhaustible, its 
range is infinite. Take house-building for example. The Chinese, who, 
alone of civilized nations, with a great literature, are evolutionists in 
their tale of human history from its low beginnings, report that the first 
men, from observation of the birds, built nests-houses in trees; the 
Ojibwa says that after the great Deluge had subsided, Manabozho, the 
culture-hero of the Algonkins, learned to build the first hut by observing 
how the muskrats constructed their houses. In the opinion of the 
Navajos of Arizona and New Mexico: “The gods are said to have 
made the first hogan in the form of a dome; from east to west it was 
spanned with rays of morning and evening sunlight, and from north to 
south with the arching beams of the rainbow. The Navajo still main- 
tains the form of this mythic hut, and the peculiar virtues deemed 
inherent in the primal elements and the blessings of the gods who made 
the first dwelling, are still invoked in their ‘house-songs.” (Amer. 
gir, Vow I. past.) 
Need we wonder that every Navajo ‘ house-warming” is a model 
lesson in nature study. 
Folkard in his volume on “ Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics,” Fergus- 
son in his “ Tree Worship,” Hartland in his “ Legend of Perseus,” and 
Frazer, in his “Golden Bough,” have shewn the vast influence which 
vegetative life has exerted over all human institutions. Here we shall 
limit ourselves to the consideration of plant-symbolism in proverb and 
in folk-speech. 
In Polynesia the tree is a source of the most sacred figures and turns. 
of speech. 
In Polynesian words for God the idea of fe is prominent. Through- 
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