LOWER JAW OF WOMBAT-PELVIS OF A KANGAROO... 163 THE FOSSIL OPOSSUM OF MONTMARTRE...... ..165 FORBES........... 192 MAP SHOWING THE DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS IN BRITAIN......216 FEET OF FOSSIL EQUIDÆ... ..305 NATURAL HISTORY. INTRODUCTION. As Man, upon any theory of his origin, cannot properly be said to have existed as Man, until he had become possessed of that faculty of reason which constitutes his title to the name of homo sapiens, it is not altogether extravagant to say that the study of natural history dates its first beginnings from the time of the first appearance of man upon the earth. Primitive man, whatever may have been the development of his reasoning powers, was assuredly very indifferently provided with the appliances of modern civilisation. So far as concerns their mastery of the forces of external nature, we may, without much risk of controversy, assume that the early races of men were savages. It would therefore have been indeed strange if man, cast, to begin with, amongst a vast series of living creatures, many of which had the power of influencing his material condition for good or for evil, should have shown himself insensible to A their presence, or wholly inobservant of their characters, habits, and modes of life. The contrary must always have been the case. It may well be that the rude Palæolithic men who roamed through the trackless forests of Western Europe, clad in undressed skins, and armed only with roughly chipped flints, would gaze wholly unmoved on the thousand beauties of the world around them. Nature has no emotional side, save for those whose souls are freed from the ever-present necessity of procuring food and raiment, shelter from the elements, and protection against wild beasts. Precisely the same indifference to the softer aspects of nature, and the same insensibility to its beauties, are shown by modern savages, and, for essentially the same reasons, by the poorest members of civilised communities at the present day. We may take it for granted, however, that, just as existing savages are usually accurately acquainted with the larger animals inhabiting their country, so the early flint-men of Postglacial Europe must have possessed a minute knowledge of the external characters and habits of such animals as the cave-lion, the cave-bear, the mammoth, and the reinSuch accurate knowledge of animals, however, even if wholly confined to an acquaintance with their general appearance and mode of life, is, in truth, the basis of scientific natural history. It is probable, then, that the beginnings of natural history consisted in the knowledge, which the early races of mankind could not fail to acquire, of all those larger animals which, inhabiting the earth or its waters, were either of value for food, or a source of danger from their size and ferocity. Apart from this, most early mythologies bear testimony to a primeval and widely-spread belief in the mystical or sacred character of various of the more conspicuous animals with which each aboriginal people might happen to be familiar. Not only were particular animals endowed by popular consent with special qualities, good or evil, but specially human attributes were commonly ascribed to them, or they were even regarded as the companions or the representatives of particular deities. That this association of certain animals with early religious beliefs was, however, of comparatively late growth, is shown conclusively by the fact that, as a general rule, these primitive myths have a distinctly local colouring; the animals regarded as sacred or symbolic by each people being commonly those indigenous to the region inhabited by that people. Thus, the animals regarded with special veneration, or associated with special deities, among the nations of Central and Northern Europe, are such as the bear, the wild boar, and the wolf; while among the peoples of warmer regions similar supernatural qualities are ascribed to the elephant, the lion, the panther, and the peacock. That there is, nevertheless, some common ground for such beliefs is attested by the fact that the same animals are sometimes found to have been credited with some hidden significance among races now widely remote from one another. Thus, to give a single example, the goose-or, it may be, the swan-is mixed up in various ways with the folklore or religious myths of the Hindus, the Romans, the Greeks, and the Northern European races generally. The |