Thus we see that the most noxious of herbs and the most repulsive of reptiles have been the means ordained to instruct mankind in what, during the first ages of his existence, must have been the most useful of arts. We cannot now determine how far this agent may have been influential in exterminating those huge animals, the Elephas primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorhinus, with the remains of which the earliest races of man have been so frequently associated, and which, in those primaeval days, before he began to turn his hand to the destruction of his own species, must have constituted his most formidable enemies.
Missiles. Amongst the offensive weapons of animals, the use of missiles cannot be altogether excluded, although the examples of their use by the lower creation are extremely rare. Some species of cuttle-fish have the power of ejecting water with a good aim.[124] The Toxotes, or archer-fish, obtains its name from its faculty of projecting drops of water at insects some three or four feet from the surface of the water; which it seldom fails to bring down. The llama has a habit of ejecting its saliva, but I am not aware of the object of this singular practice. I only know from experience that its manners are offensive, and that it has the power of spitting with a good aim and for some distance. The porcupine has the power of throwing its quills, and is said to do so with effect, although it is not now believed to dart them with any hostile intention. The Polar bear is described in Captain Hall’s recent publication as an animal capable of capturing the walrus by missile force.[125] It is said that the bear will take advantage of an overhanging cliff, under which its prey is seen asleep upon the ice, to throw down, with its paws, large stones, and with such good aim as to hit the walrus on the head, after which, running down to the place where the animal lays stunned, it will take the stone to beat out its brains. That animals are instinctively acquainted with the force of gravitation is evident by their avoiding precipices that would endanger them, and it certainly requires a slight (but at the same time most important) advance upon this knowledge, to avail themselves of large stones for such purposes as are here attributed to the bear; but as the story only rests on the authority of the Esquimaux, it must, I think—although they certainly are careful observers of the habits of animals—be rejected, until confirmed by the direct testimony of white men. It has even been doubted whether the alleged habit of monkeys, in throwing coco-nuts at their pursuers, has not arisen from the mistake of the hunter in supposing that fruit accidentally detached from their stalks by the gambols of these animals in the trees, may have been intended as missiles; but it appears now to be clearly established that monkeys have the intelligence, not only to throw stones, but even to use them in breaking the shells of nuts. Major Denham, in his account of his travels in Central Africa, near Lake Tshad, says: ‘The monkeys, or as the Arabs say, men enchanted, “Beny Adam meshood,” were so numerous, that I saw upwards of 150 assembled in one place in the evening. They did not at all appear inclined to give up their ground, but perched on the top of a bank, some 20 feet high, made a terrible noise, and rather gently than otherwise, pelted us as we approached within a certain distance.’ This, I think, is clear evidence of a combined pelting on the part of these untutored animals.
The monkey thus furnishes us with the only example of the use of any external substance for offensive purposes, by any member of the animal kingdom. All others, except, perhaps, the missile fishes above described, use, for offence and defence, the weapons with which nature has furnished them, and which are integral parts of their persons. It is this which so essentially distinguishes man from the lower creation. Man is the tool-using animal. We have no knowledge of man, in any state of existence, who is not so; nor have we (with the exception of the ape, the link indirectly connecting him with the lower creation, in the same manner that the savage connects the civilized with the aboriginal man, both being branches from the same stem) any knowledge of animals that employ tools or weapons. Herein lies the point of separation, which, in so far as the material universe is concerned, marks the dawn of a new dispensation. Hitherto Providence operates directly on the work to be performed, by means of the living, animated tool. Henceforth, it operates indirectly on the progress and development of creation, first, through the agency of the instinctively tool-using savage, and by degrees, of the intelligent and reasoning man.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES VI-XI
[Revised and abridged from the ‘Description’ appended to the original text. The roman numeral refers to the Plate on which the figure is printed.]
1. a. Adze of iron, constructed by Captain Cook’s armourer for the use of the natives of Tahiti, b. Adze of stone, Tahitian, used as model in making the above. Meyrick (Skelton), Engraved Illustrations of Ancient Arms and Armour (1830), vol. ii. pl. cxlix.
Plate VI.
2. a. Pipe-handled Tomahawk, of European manufacture, constructed for the use of North American Indians. (Mus. R. U. S. Inst.) Meyrick (Skelton), l. c., vol. ii. pl. cxlix. b. Pipe and Tomahawk of pipe-stone, used by the Dacotas of N. America. Schoolcraft, Information concerning the History, &c., of the Indian Tribes of the United States, vol. ii. pl. lxix.
VI.
3. Maeotian, or Scythian Bow, from a vase-painting. Hamilton, Etruscan Antiquities, vol. iv. pl. cxvi; Meyrick, Critical Enquiry into Ancient Armour (1824) vol. i. pl. ii. 14; Rawlinson, Herodotus (1862), vol. iii. pp. 3, 35.