324 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



inml j§wforg. 



ADDRESS OF A. R. WALLACE BEFORE 

 THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 



RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN VIEWS AS TO THE ANTIQUITY 

 AND ORIGIN OF MAN. 



Continued. 



IT is a curious circumstance that notwithstanding the 

 _atention that has been directed to the subject in 

 every part of the world, and the numerous excavations 

 connected with railways and mines which have offered 

 such facilities for geological discovery, no advance what- 

 ever has been made for a considerable number of years in 

 detecting the time or the mode of man's origin. The 

 Paleolithic Hint weapons, first discovered in the north of 

 France more than thirty years ago, are still the oldest un- 

 disputed proofs of man's existence; and amid the count- 

 less relics of a former world there has been brought to 

 light no evidence of any one of the links that must have 

 connected man with the lower animals has yet appeared. 



It is indeed well known that negative evidence in geology 

 is of very slender value, and this is, no doubt, generally 

 the case. The circumstances here are, however, peculiar 

 for many converging lines of evidence show that on the 

 theory of development by the same laws which have de- 

 termined the development of the lower animals, man must 

 be immensely older than any traces of him yet discovered. 

 As this is a point of great interest we must devote a few 

 moments to i*s consideration. 



1. The most important difference between man and 

 such of the lower animals as most nearly approach him is 

 undoubtedly in the bulk and development of his brain as 

 indicated by the form and capacity of the cranium. We 

 should therefore anticipate that these earliest races, who 

 were contemporary with the extinct animals and used rude 

 weapons, would show a marked deficiency in this respect. 

 Yet the oldest known crania — those of the Engis and Cro- 

 Magnon caves — show no marks of degradation. The 

 former does not present so low a type as that of most ex- 

 isting savages, but is — to use the words of Professor Hux- 

 ley — "a fair average human skull, which might have 

 belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the 

 thoughtless brains of a savage." The latter are still more 

 remarkable, being unusually large and well formed. Dr. 

 Pruner-Bey states that they surpass the average of modern 

 European skulls in capacity, while their symmetrical forms, 

 without any traces of prognathism, compare favorably, 

 not only with the foremost savage races, but with many 

 'civilized nations of modern times. 



One or two other crania of much lower type, but of less 

 antiquity than this have been discovered; but they in no 

 way invalidate the conclusion which so highly developed 

 a form at so early a period implies, viz.: that we have as 

 yet made a hardly preceptible step toward the discovery of 

 any earlier stage in the development of man. 



2. This conclusion is supported and enforced by the 

 nature of many of the works of art found even in the old- 

 est cave dwellings. The flints are of the old chipped type, 

 but they are formed into a large variety of tools and wea- 

 pons, such as scrapers, awls, hammers, saws, lances, etc., 

 implying a variety of purposes for which thece were used, 

 and a corresponding degree of mental activity and civiliza 

 tion. Numerous articles of bone have also been found, 

 including well-formed needles, implying that skins were 

 sewn together, and perhaps even textile materials woven 

 into cloth. Still more important are numerous Carvings 

 and drawings representing a variety of animals, including 

 horses, reindeer, and even mammoth, executed with con- 

 siderable skill on bone, reindeer horns and mammoth tusks. 

 These, taken together, indicate a state of civilization much 

 higher than that of the lowest of our modern savages, 

 while it is quite compatible with a considerable degree of 

 mental advancement, and leads us to believe that the crania 

 of the Engis and Cro Magnon are not exceptional but fairly 

 represent the characters of the race. If we further re- 

 member that these people lived in Europe and under the 

 unfavorable conditions of a sub Arctic climate, we shall 

 be inclined to agree with Dr. Daniel Wilson, that it is 

 far easier to produce evidences of deterioration than of 

 progress in instituting a comparison between the contem- 

 poraries of the mammoth and later prehistoric races of 

 Europe or savage nations of modern times. 



3. Yet another important line of evidence to the ex- 

 treme antiquity of the human type has been brought pro- 

 minently forward by Prof. Mivart. He shows by a 

 careful comparison of all parts of the structure of the 

 body, that man is related not to any one, but almost equally 

 to the many existing apes— to the orang, the chimpanzee, 

 the gorilla, and even to the gibbons— in a variety of ways; 

 and these relations and differences are so numerous and so 

 diverse that on the theory of evolution the ancestral form 

 which ultimately developed into man must have diverged 

 from the common stock whence all these various forms 

 and their extinct allies originated. But so far back as the 

 Miocene deposits of Europe we find the remains of apes 

 allied to these various forms, and especially to the gibbons, 

 so that in all probability the special line of variation which 

 led up to man branched off at a still earlier period. And 

 these early forms, being the initiation of a far higher 

 type, and having to develope by natural selection into so 

 specialized and altogether distinct a creature as man, must 

 have risen at a very early period into the position of a dom- 

 inant race, and spread in dense waves of population over 



all suitable portions of the great continent — for this, on 

 Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, is essential to rapid develop- 

 mental progress through the agency of natural selection. 



Under these circumstances we might expect to find some 

 relics of these earlier forms of man along with those of 

 animals which were presumably less abundant. Negative 

 evidence of this kind is not very weighty, but still it has 

 some value. It has been suggested that as apes are mostly 

 tropical, and the anthropoid apes are now confined almost 

 exclusively to the vicinity of the equator, we should ex- 

 pect the ancestral forms also to have inhabited these same 

 localities— West Africa and the Malay Islands. But this 

 objection is hardly valid because existing anthropoid apes 

 are wholly dependent on a perennial supply of easily ac- 

 cessible fruits which is only found near the equator, while 

 not only had the south of Europe an almost tropical cli- 

 mate in Miocene times, but we must suppose even the 

 earliest ancestors of man to have been terrestial and om- 

 nivorous, since it must have taken ages of slow modifica- 

 tion to have produced the perfectly erect form, the short 

 arms and the wholly non prehensile foot which so strongly 

 differentiate man from the apes. 



The conclusion which I think we must arrive at is, that 

 if man has been developed from a common ancestor, with 

 all existing apes, and by no other agencies than such as have 

 affected their development, then he must have existed in 

 something approaching his present form during the Ter- 

 tiary period— and not merely existed but predominated in 

 numbers wherever suitable conditions prevailed. If then 

 continued researches in all parts of Europe and Asia fail 

 to bring to light any proofs of his presence it will be at 

 least a presumption that he came into existence at a much 

 later date, and by a much more rapid process of develop- 

 ment. In that case it will be a fair argument, that, just as 

 he is in his mental and moral nature, his capacities and as- 

 pirations, so infinitely raised above the brutes, so his origin 

 is due to distinct and higher agencies than such as have 

 affected their development. 



There is yet another line of inquiry bearing upon this 

 subject to which I wish to call your attention. It is a 

 somewhat curious fact that, while all modern writers admit 

 the great antiquity of man, most of them maintain the very 

 recent development of his intellect, and will hardly con- 

 template the possibility of men equal in mental capacity to 

 ourselves, having existed in prehistorical times. This 

 question is generally assumed to be settled, by such relics 

 as have been preserved of the manufactures of the older 

 races, showing a lower and lower state of the arts, by the 

 successive disappearance in early limes of iron, bronze and 

 pottery; and by the ruder forms of the older flint imple- 

 ments. The weakness of this argument has been well 

 shown by Mr. Albert Mott, in his very original but little- 

 known Presidential Address to the Literary and Philoso- 

 phical Society of Liverpool in 1873. He maintained "that 

 our most distant glimpses of the past are still of a world 

 peopled as now with men both civilized and savage," and 

 "that we have often entirely misread the past by supposing 

 that, the outward signs of civilization must always be the 

 same, and must be such as are found among ourselves. " 

 In support of this view he adduces a variety of striking 

 facts and ingenious arguments, a few of which I will briefly 

 summarize. 



On one of the most remote islands of the Pacific— Easter 

 Island— 2,000 miles from South America, 2,000 from the 

 Marquesas, and more than 1,000 from theGambier Islands, 

 are found hundreds of gigantic stone images, now mostly 

 in ruins, often thirty or forty feet high, while some seem 

 to have been much larger, the crowns on their heads cut 

 out of a red stone being sometimes ten feet in diameter, 

 while even the head and neck of one is said to have been 

 twenty feet high. These once stood erect on extensive 

 stone platforms, yet the island has only an area of about 

 thirty square miles, or considerably less than Jersey. Now 

 as one of the smallest images eight feet high weighs four- 

 tons, the largest must weigh over a hundred tons, if not 

 much more, and the existence of such vast works implies 

 a large population, abundance of food and an established 

 government. Yet how could these co-exist in a mere 

 speck of land wholly cut off from the rest of the world? 

 Mr. Mott maintains that this necessarily implies the power 

 of regular communication with larger islands or a conti- 

 nent, the arts of navigation, and a civilization much 

 higher than now exists in any part of the Pacific. Yery 

 similar remains in other islands scattered widely over the 

 Pacific add weight to this argument. 



[To be continued.] 



\| +++ _ 



For Forest and Stream, 

 HABITS OF BLACK BASS OF THE 

 POTOMAC. 



BEING on a committee to observe the habits of the 

 "Micropterus Salmoides," I send you the result of 

 my observation, as perhaps interesting to some of your 

 readers. The facts noted are only such as an angler would 

 be likely to note and I regret that my knowledge of Natural 

 History is not extensive enough to give a more accurate 

 report. Black bass are not taken in such numbers in the 

 Potomac at this point now as formerly, but are still numer- 

 ous enough to afford average sport during summer and 

 autumn, and furnish cheap food to a not inconsiderable 

 number of people. They are increasing in Goose Creek, a 

 tributary of the Potomac, and in the small streams flowing 

 into it. This increase will probably continue until their 

 minnow-food gets scarce when the usual retrograde, as to 

 number, will occur as has happened elsewhere. Consider- 

 able numbers are taken near the mouths of the branches 

 flowing into Qoose Creek, in the creek itself and the river, 



with live bait and with the fly. The largest have been 

 caught in the river; those of the creek aie smaller as a rule, 

 but not despicable in size, while those in the branches are 

 the smallest of the three. The largest bass captured in the 

 river weighed six pounds and over. The largest in the 

 creek about four pounds; and one of a pound in a branch 

 would be a "big fish." I have no doubt from observations 

 of ova taken from bass of different sizes and at different 

 times, that bass here spawn throughout spring and early 

 summer, prolonging their labors according to the depth of 

 water, &c, in their several sub-dietricts so as to give in 

 stamesof spawning as eaily as March and as late as the 

 15th of June. I have examined the ova of five or six dif- 

 ferent sizes of bass ranging from six to eighteen or twenty 

 inches, and found in November, the eggs separately dis- 

 cernible and equally developed in all, though the sacks 

 were of course of various sizes. The ova mentioned above 

 were about as large as blunt pin points, and, I think, would 

 be ready to flow in the last part of February, certainly by 

 the 1st March. The earliest caught last season were taken 

 in May; the latest in the latter part of November. Anglers 

 stop fishing here in December, but I believe bass could be 

 taken even in that month if trial were made. The earliest 

 taken with the fly were taaen on 1st of June; the latest, by 

 that means, in November. They can be taken with the 

 fly from June 1st till December, whenever the water is 

 clear enough for the fish to see the fly, and not so clear as 

 to make apparent the angler. They retire to deeper waters 

 as the weather gets cool and are often taken thence with 

 live bait, hellgramites, &c. They may be captured with 

 the fly even in cool weather on the edges of deep pools 

 long after they have deserted the shallows proper. Bass 

 weighing over three pounds have been killed with the fly, 

 and bass of over six pounds with the live minnows. Maj. 

 T. B. Ferguson has killed three at a cast on several occa- 

 sions and their gameness is unquestioned, both in seiziwg 

 the lure and in the consequent struggle. To sum up, the 

 bass spend the winter in the deepest waters— begin to 

 ascend the streams in early spring — spawn in spring and 

 summer, and are in their best condition in autumn. The 

 main aimy have finished the labor by the middle of June. 

 The open season ought to be, in this locality, from 15th 

 June to 1st December until more accurate data may be 

 •gathered of their habits. Their food consists of worms, 

 larvae, flies, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, and small fish 

 of all sorts. They are very voracious, fierce, and strong. 

 In a good pool they can leap vertically Several feet. They 

 have been found above dams four or five feet high after 

 being put in below such structures. The artificial flies most 

 taking with these scaly citizens are the "Ferguson fly," 

 tied by Abbey & Imbrie, red, brown, and ginger hackles 

 and hackles brown and black together. Of the winged 

 flies, the coachman with white wings, flies with peacock 

 herl body, ginger hackle and yellowish white wings with 

 red streaks and red antennae have been most killing. Most 

 of the "bass flies," sent from the tackle stores are entirely 

 too large and ordinary trout flies tied on Aberdeen and on 

 Sproat hooks ot small size are much more effective than the 

 so-called bass flies of the stores. I inclose a very roughly 

 tied fly as a specimen of what takes their fancy here. I 

 call it the "Academy." The commonest caterpillar here 

 in November is black and reddish brown; hackles like it 

 are quite taking. T. W. 



Leesburg, Va. 



Note.— Our Angling friends will feel indebted to oar correspondent 

 for these very fall and well timed notes.— Ed.] 



THE RARER BIRDS OF WESTERN, 

 NEW YORK 



♦ 



BY J. B. GILBERT. » 



THE following list is sent us through Mr. H. G. Fowler, 

 whose interesting catalogue of the birds of Central 

 New York most of our readers will remember. The speci- 

 mens from which this list is taken are, we are told, all in 

 Mr. Gilbert's collection at Penn Yan, Yates county, New 

 York. This cabinet of one thousand skins, consists wholly 

 of New York State birds, aad as will be seen by the list 

 contains several species extremely rare in the State, and 

 one or two which have not hitherto been taken within its 

 borders. 



The occurrence of the Barn owl and of Wilson's Plover, 

 both unusual birds in this locality, and besides this not to 

 be expected so far inland, will be interesting to our readers. 

 Ardea egretta though it will never of course be common on 

 the lakes of western New York, we should expect to find it 

 occasionally, for we have seen it as far north as latitude 

 47 degrees in the west, near the Missouri River, and it 

 occurs as a straggler in Connecticut, though rarely. 



The most interesting species in the list is, we think, Tor- 

 zana jamaicensis, a bird of extremely rare occurrence in 

 the United States, a widely distributed species it is true, 

 but so seldom taken that it is regarded as one of the greatest 

 prizes a collector can secure. The breeding of Anthus 

 ludomcianus within the State, is another fact of too much 

 interest to be passed over in silence. 



We take leave to congratulate Mr. Gilbert on the fine 

 collection of New York birds which he possesses, and also 

 on his having been, as we believe, the fir^t ornithologist to 

 take Porzana jamaicensis within the limits of New York 

 State. 



Polioptila caerulea. Blue-gray gnat-catcher. Irregular as 

 to numbers, but never rare. Perhaps breeds. Arrives 

 from the south in May. 



Anthus ludovicianus. Titlark. Not a rare spring and 

 autumn migrant; a few remain and breed. m ^ 



Eelmitheru$ vermivorus* Worm -eating warbler. Not $ 

 very rare spring and autumn migrant, 



