1892.93.] 549 



closest observation and study, not as a matter of choice merely, 

 but as a matter of downright necessity. His study of the fauna 

 and flora of the country he dwelt in, was not to fill cabinets with 

 curious or rare specimens of minerals or fossils, animals or plants ; 

 his sole and only aim was, like the animals he lived with, to 

 procure food and shelter from the weather, and to protect him- 

 self from the attacks of the wild beasts. 



The very earliest evidence of his existence that we have dis- 

 covered, are worked flints — rudely worked flints, of the most 

 unattractive appearance ; and yet from their ethnological in- 

 terest, they are of the very highest value, and mark one of the 

 most important steps in the progress of the development of 

 species in the animal world. Looking back through the entire 

 record of geological time we have no similar fossil remains of 

 any other animal. 



The lowly forms of the Cambrian and Silurian periods, the 

 strange fishes of the Devonian and Carboniferous deposits, the 

 saurians and cephalopods of the Oolitic, and the mammals of the 

 Tertiaries, have all left unquestioned remains of their bodily 

 structure, sufficient to unable us to realize their forms, dimen- 

 sions, and modes of life. 



No other animal but man has left for our contemplation any 

 kind of object to be compared with a rude worked flint, which, 

 by its form, number, distribution, and modes of occurrence, 

 demonstrates that a new agency had come into operation, and 

 that that agent was man. No other animal but man is, or ever 

 was, capable of making or using an implement, weapon, or tool 

 as a secondary agent for the purpose of adapting his surroundings 

 to his requirements, and hence man may be called the tool- 

 making animal. 



Throughout the animal world there are many creatures 

 capable of providing themselves with protective coverings, or 

 places for retreat : many of the results of such efforts are of the 

 highest interest, as the cocoon of insects, the shells of the 

 Mollusca, the cases of the Crustacea, and the tubes of Serpulce 

 and many other kinds of worms, the wonderful web of the 



