THE ALLIES OF THE SQUIRREL: MAMMALIA 435 



those of Persia and Tibet. After all, the study of the condi- 

 tions under which he lived is a more important subject than 

 the discussion of either the time or place of his origin. 



Primitive man was a savage, living in caves. His princi- 

 pal means of defense, in addition to those with which nature 

 had provided him, were a stone picked from the ground or a 

 bough broken from a tree. At an early stage in his develop- 

 ment he learned the use of fire, made clothing of the skins of 

 wild beasts to keep himself warm, and fashioned rude imple- 

 ments out of bone, shell, horn, wood, and stone. In those 

 places where such easily worked metals as copper and zinc 

 were accessible man early learned their use and made from 

 them implements of bronze, a compound of the two metals. 

 From a hunting existence arose the nomadic or wandering 

 life, with property in the shape of herds of domesticated or 

 semidomesticated animals, and the more fixed agricultural 

 condition in which the main dependence for food was on the 

 products of the field. We see people to-day in each of these 

 conditions of existence. Along with the advance in the mode 

 of life has gone a mental and moral evolution as man's con- 

 quest of nature has been pushed through wider and wider 

 fields. 



