14 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



It is difficult to suggest a physical faculty of Man which is 

 not shared by him with other animals. It is equally difficult to 

 suggest a moral or intellectual faculty of his which is not 

 foreshadowed in them. 



Though the present paper is necessarily directed to the early 

 history of Man in the British Islands, I must ask leave to refer 

 by way of preface to the important discovery by Dr. Dubois in 

 Java of remains to which he gave the name Pithecanthropus 

 erectus. Whether we regard the controversy which has arisen over 

 this discovery, or the nature of the remains themselves, they form 

 a fitting introduction to the consideration of the question. 



In the neighbourhood of Trinil, in 1891-92, Dr. Dubois 

 unearthed a great number of fossil bones, among which he found 

 the upper part of a skull, a thigh-bone, and two teeth, which 

 resembled those of Man. Great care had been taken in remov- 

 ing the layers of rock one by one, so that it was ascertained that 

 these remains were accompanied by those of animals now 

 extinct. The bones were fossilized, harder than marble, very 

 heavy, and of a chocolate-brown colour. 



When the skull is compared with that found in 1857, at 

 Neanderthal, in Prussia, it is observed to be less capacious, less 

 lofty, and in other respects of an inferior type. It may be said, 

 in popular language, to stand as far behind the skull of Neander- 

 thal as that skull, with its low capacity, its prominent eyebrow 

 ridges, and its rapidly receding front, stands behind a normally 

 developed skull of the present day. 



The thigh-bone shows a number of peculiarities, the most 

 apparent of which is a large diseased excrescence of bony growth 

 along one side of it. In a paper read at the Liverpool meeting 

 of the British Association in 1896, it was shown that these 

 peculiarities may be found, either alone or in some degree 

 of combination, in thigh-bones derived from existing races 

 of mankind. Whether the thigh-bone belonged to the same 

 individual as the skull is not certain, but it appears to be 

 probable that it did. If so, it would seem that the individual 

 was of short stature. 



The teeth are large, and appear from their shape to indicate a 

 greater degree of prognathism in the face than is usual in 

 mankind. 



