55© [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



spider, and the arborescent products of corals, — all such may, 

 however, be considered instinctive secretions of the body, more 

 or less independent of volition. 



Another group of animals appropriate for their use external 

 materials within their reach, as the marine worms, like the 

 Terebella of our sandy beaches, which build their tubes by select- 

 ing and bringing together grains of sand, fragments of shells, or 

 the cases of dead Foraminifera. Larvae of flies, such as the 

 various forms of caddis-worm, will construct their cases or tubes 

 of glass beads, fragments of wood, or any similar materials 

 supplied them for the purpose. Birds will collect sticks, mud, 

 hair, feathers, wool, leaves and moss, with which to construct 

 their nests, according to their species. Thrushes will even use a 

 stone on which to break and remove the shells of snails on 

 which they feed. And some crows will carry shell-fish up into 

 the air, and then drop them on the rocks to be broken, so that 

 they may feed on the flesh thus exposed. A rook will break off 

 a branch with which to build its nest, or an elephant may even 

 whisk itself with a detached branch ; or a monkey may use a 

 stone with which to break a nut : — But no other animal except 

 man makes for itself an implement or tool to be used as a 

 secondary agent in fashioning or adapting other materials or 

 objects for their intended purposes in the operations of life. 

 Hence man may be called a tool-making animal. Such a tool 

 or implement, in the shape of a somewhat rudely-worked flint, 

 is the earliest evidence we have yet discovered of the existence 

 of man. With reference to his origin, or to his condition prior 

 to the manufacture of this flint, we have no physical evidence. 

 The question of his origin is not at present relevant to our 

 subject, but we may fairly speculate as to his condition im- 

 mediately antecedent to the finding of this worked flint. 



It is manifest that he must have existed for a very long — 

 literally an indefinite — period before he left the worked flint at, 

 or near, the spot where it is now found. This is evident from 

 the consideration that he had sufficient time to spread over a 

 very extended area, embracing many countries, and far from the 



