LIFE OF TEKTIAEY PERIOD 267 



armed mammals. But this, I think, is quite a mistake. Xo 

 weapon is more effective for this purpose than a spear, of 

 various kinds, when large numbers of hunters attack a single 

 animal; and when made of tough wood, with the point hard- 

 ened by fire and well sharpened, it is as effective as when 

 metal heads are used. Bamboo, too, abundant in almost all 

 warm countries, forms a very deadly spear when cut obliquely 

 at the point. The way in which even a man-eating tiger is 

 killed by this means in Java is described in my ^lalay 

 Archipelago (p. 82). Such a method would doubtless have 

 been adopted even by Palaeolithic man, and would have been 

 effective against any of the larger animals of the Pleistocene 

 age. 



It is therefore certain, that, so soon as man possessed 

 weapons and the use of fire, his power of intelligent com- 

 bination would have rendered him fully able to kill or cap- 

 ture any animal that has ever lived upon the earth ; and as 

 the flesh, bones, hair, horns, or skins would have been of 

 use to him, he would certainly have done so even had he 

 not the additional incentive that in many cases the animals 

 were destructive to his crops or dangerous to his children or 

 to himself. The numbers he would be able to destroy, es- 

 pecially of the young, would be an important factor in the 

 extermination of many of the larger species. 



There remains, however, the question, well put by Mr. 

 Lydekker, whether there is not some general deep-seated cause 

 affecting the life of species, and sending to explain, if only 

 partially, the successive dying out of numbers of large ani- 

 mals involving a complete change in the preponderant typos 

 of organic life at certain epochs; and to this question and 

 some others allied to it a separate chapter must be devoted. 



APPEXDIX 



THE THEORY OF COXTINEXTAL EXTEXSIOXS 



Most writers consider that the preceding facts (see p. 2-11) go to 

 prove the existence of a land-connection l)otwecn Soiitli America 



