24 



The Probable Region 



remain and contend with cold, but are more likely to be the 

 descendants of those who were near the narrow land connections 

 from Europe to Northern Africa, and from Asia down into 

 Malaysia. The Ethiopian apes, however, are on the whole 

 more highly developed than the Oriental ones, possibly on 

 account of the long detention of their ancestors in the 

 mountainous district of Northern Africa, arrested by the 

 Sahara sea or desert. 



The recently discovered Pliocene fossil, Palceopithecus, too, 

 which has been shown by its teeth to be more highly developed 

 than any existing Oriental ape, probably owed its superior de- 

 velopment to its detention in the Himalayan region. 



The same set of circumstances which drove the apes from 

 Central to Southern Europe and Asia, and arrested their progress 

 farther southwards (namely, on the north the increasing cold 

 and on the south the sea-barrier), would operate upon immense 

 hordes of other animals that had to contend with the same 

 climatal hardships. The crowding together in this region of 

 all kinds of animals must have given rise to other struggles, 

 fiercer perhaps than those due to a lowering of temperature. In 

 this region the struggle between natural enemies must have 

 been intense, and was well calculated to sharpen intelligence, 

 and promote the growth of brain. The apes, by nature endowed 

 with imperfect powers of locomotion, would be compelled in 

 self-defence to use their hands and arms in wielding weapons, 

 instead of taking shelter in trees. Wood, horn, bone, and stone 

 weapons or missiles would doubtless be used for such purposes 

 with at first, perhaps, little care as to their suitability, and with 

 no attempt at construction. But they doubtless played their part 

 in training and educating the arms and hands of the improving 

 ape. 



The continued increase of cold would have another great 

 result. By eliminating the number and extent of fruit-forests, 

 the surviving apes would be compelled to adapt themselves 

 gradually to new varieties of food. The compulsory departure 

 from an exclusively fruit diet would probably be followed by the 

 use of roots ; or, in the neighbourhood of rivers, lakes, and seas, 

 the apes would probably seek to secure a diet of mollusks, or of 

 fish, or even now and then, perhaps, of stranded cetaceans. Is it 

 not possible, then, that the man-like apes were by this means so 

 far developed into ape-like men as to be intelligent enough to 

 make for themselves implements of some kind, whereby they 

 cut away the flesh of stranded whales, and left their ribs marked 

 and notched (as Professor Capellini has found them) as a 

 memento of this transition period of struggle ? Whatever the 

 apes of that time were obliged to live upon, it is certain they 



