The Naturalist in La Plata eBook

adapted to their work of masticating the flesh, underdone and possibly raw, of mammoth and rhinoceros.  If, then, this living man recalls a type of the past, it is of a remoter past, a more primitive man, the volume of whose history is missing from the geological record.  To speculate on such a subject seems idle and useless; and when I coveted possession of that head it was not because I thought that it might lead to any fresh discovery.  A lower motive inspired the feeling.  I wished for it only that I might bring it over the sea, to drop it like a new apple of discord, suited to the spirit of the times, among the anthropologists and evolutionists generally of this old and learned world.  Inscribed, of course, “To the most learned,” but giving no locality and no particulars.  I wished to do that for the pleasure—­not a very noble kind of pleasure, I allow—­of witnessing from some safe hiding-place the stupendous strife that would have ensued—­a battle more furious, lasting and fatal to many a brave knight of biology, than was ever yet fought over any bone or bony fragment or fabric ever picked up, including the celebrated cranium of the Neanderthal.

APPENDIX.

THE PUMA, OR LION OF AMERICA.

The following passage occurs in an article on “The Naturalist in La Plata,” by the late Professor Piomanes, which appeared in the Nineteenth Century, May, 1893.  After quoting the account of the puma’s habits and character given in the book, the writer says:—­“I have received corroboration touching all these points from a gentleman who, when walking alone and unarmed on the skirts of a forest, was greatly alarmed by a large puma coming out to meet him.  Deeming it best not to stand, he advanced to meet the animal, which thereupon began to gambol around his feet and rub against his legs, after the manner of an affectionate cat.  At first he thought these movements must have been preliminary to some peculiar mode of attack, and therefore he did not respond, but walked quietly on, until the puma suddenly desisted and re-entered the forest.  This gentleman says that, until the publication of Mr. Hudson’s book, he had always remained under the impression that that particular puma must have been insane.”

MUSIC AND DANCING IN NATURE.

I have found among my papers the following mislaid note on the subject of sportive displays of mammalians, which should have been used on page 281, where the subject is briefly treated:—­Most mammalians are comparatively silent and live on the ground, and not having the power to escape easily, which birds have, and being more persecuted by man, they do not often disport themselves unrestrainedly in his presence; it is difficult to watch any wild animal without the watcher’s presence being known or suspected.  Nevertheless, their displays are not so rare as we might imagine.  I have more than once detected species, with which I was, or imagined myself to be,