444 USE OF CLOTHING AND SHELTER. 



prehistoric men whose remains possess so much interest for 

 anthropologists. The beast men and wolf children of India 

 and Europe resemble savage races on the one hand, and 

 many wild animals on the other, in their non-possession of 

 other shelter than that which is afforded by caves and 

 forests. Not only have they no proper dwelling, but there 

 is incapacity for constructing artificial shelter. The wolf 

 children of India inhabit caves and forests, just as do 

 the wolves with whom they associate and by whom it is 

 currently believed they are, in some instances at least, 

 brought up. ' At the Lucknow madhouse,' says Gerhardt, 

 ' there was an elderly fellow .... who had been dug out 

 of a wolves' den by an European doctor.' 



Even in civilised Scotland of the present day we have a 

 race of cave-dwellers in Caithness-shire, whose mental 

 characteristics have been described by Dr. Arthur Mitchell. 

 And in the large cities of England there are hosts of waifs 

 and strays of society of gutter men and children of tramps 

 of all kinds, who sleep under railway arches or in other 

 equivalents of caves. In Scripture times, too, man dwelt fre- 

 quently under trees, stones, or rocks, or in caves. 



If the nature of man's dwelling is to be regarded as any 

 reflex of his degree of mental development, much cannot be 

 said for the present mental status, the constructive skill, of 

 the hut builders and dwellers of our own Scottish and 

 Irish highlands and islands. The hovels of the Hebridean 

 Islanders, for instance, are no advance on those of many 

 savages, and are not equal, mutatis mutandis, to the nests of 

 many birds. Thus, when compared with them, the bowers 

 of the bower bird appear at a decided advantage (Nichols). 



On the other hand, the chimpanzee constructs a dwelling 

 or hut albeit there are certain defects of construction in 

 the roof (Du Chaillu). The gorilla also build huts tentes 

 a Vabri (Cassell). Wallace mentions the orang as making 

 in trees, with boughs, what he calls < a leafy hut, that quite 

 concealed him from our view.' Cameron is said to have 

 seen, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, monkeys that 

 ' build a new house every day.' 



Again, the beaver weaves a protection against cold in 



