62 PHYSICAL BASIS OF CIVILIZATION 



occurrence in the natural course of events in an ape's 

 life are particularly favorable to making these 

 creatures familiar with the nature and uses of clubs 

 and missiles, but the very opposite is true with refer- 

 ence to the two-footed upright ancestors of man. 



It is all the more wonderful, and calls for expla- 

 nation, that apes handle these artificial tools and 

 weapons so rarely and so clumsily, while evidence 

 is not lacking that primitive man already in the 

 paleolithic period used them universally and skill- 

 fully. 



In their natural habitats, up among the branches 

 of the forest trees, apes, by the possession of four 

 hands, to which, in the case of a large division, 

 a prehensile tail is added, are the supreme masters 

 of the situation and have no need of arming 

 themselves artificially. Even if they happen to 

 be on the ground and there meet with a creature 

 they wish to capture, or one they are afraid of, it 

 is ordinarily easier for them, and far more promis- 

 ing of success, to swing themselves up among their 

 native branches and do battle from above; and 

 travelers tell of orangs and gorillas which, from 

 a low-hanging branch on which they rest, watch 

 for creatures that pass underneath. Then they 

 reach out, grab the passer around the throat and 

 lift him from the ground until he dies from suffo- 

 cation. 



The occasions are very rare when sticks or missiles 

 are of any real use to apes. Neither have they the 



