THE EVOL UTION OF LANG UA GE. 175 



in some favored spot on the shore of the Mexican Gulf, 

 where shell-fish, berries, and edible roots are abundant 

 and easy of access. But there is one region where 

 Nature seems to offer herself as the willing nurse and 

 bountiful stepmother of the feeble and unprotected. 

 Of all countries on the globe, there is probably not 

 one in which a little flock of very young children 

 would find the means of sustaining existence more 

 readily than in California. Its wonderful climate, 

 mild and equable beyond example, is well known. 

 Half the months are rainless. Snow and ice are 

 almost strangers. There are fully two hundred cloud- 

 less days in every year. Roses bloom in the open air 

 through all seasons. Berries of many sorts are in- 

 digenous and abundant. Large fruits and edible nuts 

 on low and pendant boughs may be said in Milton's 

 phrase to ' hang amiable.' Need we wonder that in 

 such a mild and fruitful region, a great number of 

 separate tribes were found speaking languages which 

 careful investigation has classed in nineteen distinct 

 linguistic stocks ? " x Even more striking is the case 

 of Oregon on the Californian border, which is also a 

 favored and luxuriant land. The number of linguistic 

 stocks in this narrow district is more than twice as 

 large as in the whole of Europe. 2 



1 Dr. Hale. Cf. Romanes, Mental Evolution in Man, p. 260. 



2 The construction of the mouth and lips has of course had 

 something to do with differences in Languages, and even with 

 the possibility of language in the case of Man. You must have 

 your trumpet before you can get the sound of a trumpet. One 

 reason why many animals have no speech is simply that they 

 have not the mechanism which by any possibility could produce 

 it. They might have a Language, but nothing at all like human 

 Language. It is one of the significant notes in Evolution that 



