112 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAN 



poses are used as food. The growth of a fungus in the 

 interior of ant-hills has also been observed in India an 

 Agaricus of the section Lepiota but in this case there is no 

 apparent connection with the storage and decomposition of 

 leaves or other vegetable substance. It has been alleged, 

 though I have met with no evidence to substantiate the 

 allegation, that other insects besides harvesting ants culti- 

 vate the soil and collect its fruits. Certain Termites are 

 said to sow seeds (Houzeau). There is fuller evidence that 

 some of the higher animals that do not sow them yet gather 

 the ripe fruits of the earth and use them as food. A species 

 of harvesting occurs, for instance, in apes, that gather all the 

 fruits of a given spot. The Ladajac reaps, dries, and stacks 

 in short, gathers in its harvest. 



27. Use of fire, including the art of kindling or pro- 

 ducing it. Unquestionably the lower animals, unaided, 

 cannot, or at least do not, produce fire by friction, or by 

 chemical, mechanical, or other means, as man does; but 

 they certainly use fire if they do not make it e.g. in 

 warming themselves ; and certain anthropoid apes tend 

 fires and furnaces, bakers' ovens and cooks' galleys, as as- 

 sistants to or substitutes for man. Though I have no 

 record of any instances, there is nothing to prevent such 

 animals from using lucifer matches the only means of fire- 

 making known nowadays to perhaps the majority of civi- 

 lised men. On the other hand, there is absence or ignorance 

 of the use of fire either for cooking or for warmth among 

 various savage human races, such as the Dokos of Abyssinia 

 and the Mincopies (Biichner). It is, or was, unknown to the 

 Marianne Islanders and the Gouanches of Teneriffe ; so that 

 its use is not universal in mankind ; the art of making it is 

 not instinctive ; fire itself is not necessary to man's exist- 

 ence (Houzeau). 



28. Use of the metals, including metallurgy. Certainly 

 the lower animals do not mine metallic ores, extract metals 

 from their ores, and fashion them into tools, ornaments, or 

 weapons ; but other chapters, such as that on the ' Use of 

 Tools and Weapons,' show to what extent, and in what variety 

 of ways, they make use of metallic substances and metallic 



