24 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors; they will also, 

 as I have myself seen, smoke tobacco with -pleasure.* Brehm 

 asserts that the natives of northeastern Africa catch the wild 

 baboons by exposing vessels with strong beer, by which they 

 are made drunk. He has seen some of these animals, which 

 he kept in confinement, in this state; and he gives a laugh* 

 able account of their behavior and strange grimaces. On the 

 following morning they were very cross and dismal; they 

 held their aching heads with both hands, and wore a most 

 pitiable expression; when beer or wine was offered them, 

 they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of 

 lemons.' An American monkey, an Ateles, after getting 

 drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus 

 was wiser than many men. These trifling facts prove how 

 similar the nerves of taste must be in monkeys and man, 

 and how similarly their whole nervous system is affected. 

 Man is infested with internal parasites, sometimes caus- 

 ing fatal effects; and is plagued by external parasites, all of 

 which belong to the same genera or families as those infest- 

 ing other mammals, and in the case of scabies to the same 

 species.' Man is subject, like other mammals, birds, and 

 even insects,' to that mysterious law which causes certain 

 normal processes, such as gestation, as well as the matura- 

 tion and duration of various diseases, to follow lunar periods. 

 His wounds are repaired by the same process of healing; and 

 the stumps left after the amputation of his limbs, especially 

 during an early embryonic period, occasionally possess some 

 power of regeneration, as in the lowest animals." 



° The same tastes are commou to some animals much lower in the scale. 

 Hr. A. Ificols informs me that he kept in Queensland, in Australia, three indi- 

 viduals of the Phaseolarctiis cinereus; and that, without having been taught 

 in any way, they acquired a strong taste for rum, and for smoking tobacco. 



' Brehm, "Thierieben," B. i. 1864, s. 16, 86. On the Ateles, s. 105. For 

 other analogous statements, see s. 25, 107. ~^ — ^^ 



* Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay, "Edinburgh Vet. Review," July, 1858, jy 7" 



• With respect to insects see Dr. Laycock, "On a 6ei>*-»lJ(aw jp 4 

 Periodicity," "British Association," 1842. Dr. MaccuUoch « 

 American Journal of Science," voL zviL p. 306, has seen > a^^ 

 tertian ague. Hereafter I shall return to this subject. ka'^^^ 



" I have given the evidence on this head in my "Var !'*■ 



Plants under Domestication," voL ii, p. 15, and more co '' 



