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SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



and apparently commonplace. It is by no means 

 necessary that we should possess delicate appar- 

 atus, a University training, or indeed much else 

 than acute observation, with the faculty of sifting 

 and arranging the facts as they appear to us. 



As a good instance of what we mean. Dr. 

 Robinson has shown how much satisfaction may be 

 obtained from watching the habits of such familar 

 creatures as the sleeping cat on the hearth, or the 

 bright and intelligent four-footed companion of 

 our daily walks. From long ages, remote in the 

 dim recesses of the earliest civilization of man, 

 either he has himself chosen to be associated with 

 one or other wild animal, in an apparently 

 unnatural companionship, or it is possible in 

 the earliest times some individuals of these 

 found advantage in placing themselves under his 

 protection. We must remember also, that with 

 the rise of man's intelligence from a condition 

 probably lower than that of some of the 

 higher feral animals now existing, those which 

 have been closely associated with mankind have 

 to some extent shared in his civilization. It is 

 true that in consequence of the extensive range of 

 man's expression by articulate sounds he has 

 distanced all other animals in intelligence. The 

 reason for this is because he has had the advantage 

 of accumulating the experience of his ancestors. If 

 we had had to depend entirely upon the relation of 

 such experiences by these articulate sounds, it is 

 doubtful whether any race of mankind would have 

 been much in advance of a semi-savage condition. 

 Our progress to a higher intelligence depended far 

 more upon the first accident which led to the dis- 

 covery that a series of marks would aid the memory 

 of those who desired to pass down to posterity the 

 knowledge which had been found useful in pro- 

 tecting our kind in the fight for life. If we consider 

 what is known of the position of man five or six 

 thousand years ago, and that of the most civilized 

 races five hundred years back, and compare these 

 again with our own times, we cannot fail to remark 

 how recent is our present artificial condition. 



What strikes one as remarkable is, that with all 

 his intelligence and close association with other 

 animals during an innumerable series of genera- 

 tions, man should never have found a direct means 

 of exchanging his thoughts with any other species. 

 This being so, we have to content ourselves by 

 studying their habits, and comparing those of our 

 " civilized " domestic animals with their nearest 

 allies in a wild condition. Before doing so, it is 

 quite worth while to study ourselves, or our 

 human neighbours, to see what remains to indicate 

 the style of life led by our wild ancestors. 



In the introduction to his work under notice, 

 Dr. Robinson fully realizes this fact, and attempts 

 to trace some of our commonest habits directly to 

 others which were necessary to savage man when 



he depended for his daily food upon his acuteness 

 of observation. With a fluency and freshness of 

 style which characterizes this book, Dr. Robinson 

 compares the observation necessary to make a 

 successful student of the theory of evolution, with 

 that of his savage ancestor, whose everyday busi- 

 ness was first self-protection from his enemies, and 

 then to provide food for himself and his offspring. 

 The author writes imaginatively : 



" The sun has risen over the great eastern plain 

 that now constitutes the German Ocean. From 

 his dwelling-place, consisting of a river-side cave, 

 the entrance of which is closed by roughly inter- 

 laced branches, strides our primitive forefather. 

 He is a brawny, hirsute savage, hard-featured and 

 ruddy, like a modern tramp, with his face and 

 naked limbs stippled over with tattoo marks. His 

 dress, such as it is, is made of skins of the deer and 

 wild cat, and is drawn together by a belt holding a 

 flint axe. In his hand is a bow, and hanging 

 behind his left shoulder a rough quiver of flint- 

 tipped arrows. After a keen look at the sky and 

 up and down the valley he moves steadily away 

 among the bracken and brambles towards a spot 

 where the spotted deer of the forest are wont to 

 drink at the stream. As he steps silently along, 

 his eyes and ears are alert for the least indication 

 of the presence of prey or of dangerous neighbours. 

 A hundred facts have already been observed and 

 commented upon (although perhaps unconsciously) 

 before he arrives at the river-bank. He has, 

 in fact, during this short "journey to business," 

 been reading his morning paper, including the 

 Weather Forecast. The news of the night and 

 the state of the markets as they affect his own 

 special calling. As in the case of most of us when 

 we read our morning newspapers, many of the 

 items displayed before his eyes do not awake any 

 interest. For instance, the varnished petals of the 

 buttercup which reflect the golden sunlight are 

 there to catch the attention of the wild bees which 

 are already fussing around them. Such advertise- 

 ments do not concern him at all, and he does not 

 trouble himself about them any more than we 

 trouble ourselves about wants of people with whom 

 we have no points of contact. 



As he nears the trampled spot where the thirsty 

 herds approach the water, he hears the shrill 

 cackle of a blackbird away in the forest some two 

 hundred paces beyond the deer path, and the 

 screech of a jay, accompanied by the warning 

 "pink pink" of a pair of chaffinches, coming 

 from a spot near to him. Instantly he slips 

 behind the bole of a tree, and stands motionless 

 and alert, with an arrow upon the string, for 

 he has received sure intelligence that some beast 

 of prey is prowling near, and it is necessary he 

 should gain the fullest information before proceed- 

 ing. As he stands there still as the tree trunks 

 about him, do you imagine that his mind (although 

 the nearest alphabet is ten thousand years off in 

 the future) is sluggish or inactive ? It would be 

 well for us if we could bring such keen and apposite 

 thoughts to bear upon our avocations whenever we 

 wished as those which are now coursing through 

 his brain. A dozen different theories suggested by 

 the signs, are being sifted with lightning rapidity, 

 and masterly discretion by the machinery inside of 

 that weather-beaten head. At the same moment 

 every faculty is keenly astretch for further in- 

 formation which may aid in the conclusion he must 



