The Natural History of Our ConductHarcourt, Brace, 1927 - 339 pages |
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ability acorns action adaptation American Bison amphibians animal activity anthropoids ants apes arthropods beavers bees birds body brute animals Bull cerned chimpanzee common concerned connection creatures culture danger destruction dueling effort eggs elements evidence evolution examination excessiveness fact female fossils ground habit hands herd hole horse human hunters Hyracotherium illustration impulse Indians individual injury to kind insects instance instinctive intelligence involved killed knowledge larvæ living maladaptive activity male mammals man's material matter May-flies mental Merychippus mind monkey naturalist nature needs nest objects observations organisms origin Origin of Species performance possession premolar present prey primates primitive probably problem question reached recognized reproduction resemblance result savages says seems self-injury sense sexual Sivapithecus sort species spiders storing striking structure success things tion totemism trees vertebrates W. H. Hudson wasps waste welfare whole wholly wild woodpecker yellow birch young
Popular passages
Page 308 - But the hands and arms could hardly have become perfect enough to have manufactured weapons, or to have hurled stones and spears with a true aim, as long as they were habitually used for locomotion and for supporting the whole weight of the body, or, as before remarked, so long as they were especially fitted for climbing trees.
Page 93 - I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference.
Page 286 - A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase. Every being, which during its natural lifetime produces several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction during some period of its life, and during some season or occasional year, otherwise, on the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers -would quickly become so inordinately great that no country could support the product.
Page 34 - To people who at once believe monkeys a kind of savages, and savages a kind of monkeys, men with tails are creatures coming under both definitions. Thus the Homo caudatus, or satyr, often appears in popular belief as a half-human creature, while even in old-fashioned works on natural history he may be found depicted on the evident model of an anthropoid ape. In East Africa, the imagined tribe of long-tailed men are also monkey-faced, 1 while in South America the coata tapuya, or ' monkey-men,' are...
Page 106 - Sultan first of all squats indifferently on the box, which has been left a little back from the railings; then he gets up, picks up the two sticks, sits down again on the box and plays carelessly with them. While doing this, it happens that he finds himself holding one rod in either hand in such a way that they lie in a straight line; he pushes the thinner one a little way into the opening of the thicker, jumps up and is already on the run towards the railings, to which he has up to now half turned...
Page 90 - To him who devotes his life to science, nothing can give more happiness than increasing the number of discoveries, but his cup of joy is full when the results of his studies immediately find practical applications.
Page 255 - Drewyer had thrown out the intestines, they all dismounted in confusion and ran tumbling over each other like famished dogs ; each tore away whatever part he could, and instantly began to eat it ; some had the liver, some the kidneys, in short no part on which we are accustomed to look with disgust escaped them ; one of them who had seized about nine feet of the entrails was chewing at one end, while with his hand he was diligently clearing his way by discharging the contents at the other.
Page 41 - The sense of an absolute psychical distinction between man and beast, so prevalent in the civilized world, is hardly to be found among the lower races. Men to whom the cries of beasts and birds seem like human language, and their actions guided as it were by human thought, logically enough allow the existence of souls to beasts, birds, and reptiles, as to men. The lower psychology cannot but recognize in beasts the very characteristics which it attributes to the human soul, namely, the phenomena...
Page 308 - ... whole upper part of the body should be free; and he must for this end stand firmly on his feet.
Page 106 - The proceeding seems to please him immensely; he is very lively, pulls all the fruit, one after the other, towards the railings, without taking time to eat it, and when I disconnect the double-stick he puts it together again at once, and draws any distant objects whatever to the bars.