FUTURE DESTINY OF THE RACE 83 



which have deserted the trees and taken to the open country 

 for their means of subsistence. It follows that once they 

 had successfully adapted themselves to new conditions they 

 were enabled to spread all over the globe, while their 

 backward cousins whom they left in the forests are doomed 

 to undergo diminution in numbers and final extinction as the 

 forests disappear. But there is no serious question that forests 

 have been gradually disappearing for millions of years, and 

 with the attainment of the weapons of civilisation by the 

 human race their disappearance has been hastened. The 

 reason for the prehistoric disappearance of forests has been the 

 evolution and spread of hoofed animals. The hoofed animals 

 gradually destroy forests by tearing out and eating the seedlings 

 of the trees, and every great stretch of natural open country is 

 related to the existence of one or more wide-ranging species of 

 hoofed animals. Thus, to take one example, the prairies and 

 the bison of North America were not disconnected phenomena : 

 the bison was the cause of the existence of the prairies. Now 

 the evolution of hoofed animals seems to have reached a climax 

 towards the end of the warm Miocene period, which was suc- 

 ceeded by the period of snow and icefields extending to the 

 middle of France which is known as the Glacial period. It is a 

 geological and not a zoological question as to what was the cause 

 of the mild period and of the succeeding icy one ; but when 

 we find evidence from the remains of plants in shale that 

 during the warm period the magnolia flowered in Greenland, 

 and when we find that later our own hills were covered with 

 snow and our valleys occupied with glaciers, we have no doubt 

 of the facts, and these are all that we require for, our purpose. 

 When, therefore, herds of wild oxen and deer roamed over 

 grassy plains occupying the site of our islands plains that 

 were then continuous with the great plain of Northern Europe 

 the forests must have become more and more restricted, and 

 somewhere in the northern continent it is impossible to say 

 where an enterprising race of monkeys began to seek its liveli- 

 hood on the ground, and so the human race was born. The 

 species of monkeys living at present are pre-eminently fruit- 

 eaters, but some of the more active, like the Gibbon, do hunt 

 down and catch the smaller mammals and birds, and thus enjoy 

 a mixed diet. The first traces of man's presence on earth con- 



