52 
THE DESCENT OF MAN. 
Pakt I. 
making a great uproar, rush furiously against each 
other. Brehm, when accompanying the Duke of Coburg- 
Gotha, aided in an attack with fire-arms on a troop of 
baboons in the pass of Mensa in Abyssinia. The baboons 
in return rolled so many stones down the mountain, 
some as large as a man’s head, that the attackers had 
to beat a hasty retreat ; and the pass was actually for 
a time closed against the caravan. It deserves notice 
that these baboons thus acted in concert. Mr. Wal- 
lace 26 on three occasions saw female orangs, accom- 
panied by their young, “ breaking off branches and 
“ the great spiny fruit of the Durian tree, with every 
“ appearance of rage ; causing such a shower of missiles 
“ as effectually kept us from approaching too near the 
“ tree.” 
In the Zoological Gardens a monkey which had weak 
teeth used to break open nuts with a stone ; and I was 
assured by the keepers that this animal, after using the 
stone, hid it in the straw, and would not let any other 
monkey touch it. Here, then, we have the idea of 
property ; but this idea is common to every dog with a 
bone, and to most or all birds with their nests. 
The Duke of Argyll 27 remarks, that the fashioning of 
an implement for a special purpose is absolutely peculiar 
to man ; and he considers that this forms an immeasur- 
able gulf between him and the brutes. It is no doubt 
a very important distinction, but there appears to me 
much truth in Sir J. Lubbock’s suggestion , 28 that when 
primeval man first used flint-stones for any purpose, he 
would have accidentally splintered them, and would 
then have used the sharp fragments. From this step 
it would be a small one to intentionally break the 
26 ‘ The Malay Archipelago,’ vol. i. 1869, p. 87. 
27 4 Primeval Man,’ 1869, pp. 145, 147. 
28 ‘ Prehistoric Times,’ 1865, p. 473, &c. 
