522 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



of the origin of man triumphantly asked for the production of 

 the missing link. There seems now to be a little extra reliance 

 placed by some anthropologists on the discovery of Pithec- 

 anthropus erectus. Mr. Keane boldly states, " This pliocene 

 inhabitant of Java may thus, in a sense, be taken as the long- 

 sought-for " First Man "; and as it is not very probable that he 

 can have had any undoubtedly human precursors, the Indo- 

 Malaysian inter-tropical lands may also, with some confidence, 

 be regarded as the cradle of the human family." Reference of 

 approval is also made to the views of the Danish anthropologist, 

 Herluf Winge, who considers that Man is more closely allied to 

 the Gibbon than to the other Simians, — " a conclusion also 

 pointed at by the Java skull." 



The wide reading of the author is perceptible on every page, 

 and this is the most necessary equipment for the ethnologist. 

 Very much information must, and can only be obtained from 

 travellers, who are frequently men without ethnological insight, 

 or, in other words, possessed of local prejudice. Hence travellers' 

 tales do not always agree, and the key to the reconciliation of 

 their narratives is not the invocation of fiction, but often the 

 clear understanding of psychological variation and racial warps. 

 Thus, how much is still to be learned as to the disgusting practice 

 of cannibalism, of which Herrera is quoted as saying of the Colom- 

 bian aborigines, " the living are the grave of the dead ; for the 

 husband has been seen to eat his wife, the brother his brother or 

 sister, the son his father." And yet we are astonished to read 

 that this savage brutalism is condoned by the Cocomas of the 

 Maranon, who said " it was better to be inside a friend than to be 

 swallowed up by the cold earth," while a baptized member of the 

 Mayorunas of the Upper Amazons " complained on his death- 

 bed that he would not now provide a meal for his Christian 

 friends, but must be devoured by worms." 



We cannot quote further from this mine of information 

 relating to our own species; it describes many of the early errors 

 which still cling to our onward march, and is a sound guide to 

 events in our history of which the most ancient written records 

 are but of yesterday. 



