all the acute perceptive faculties of the adult savage are directed to acquiring and perfecting it.  The good hunter or warrior thus comes to know the bearing of every hill and mountain range, the directions and junctions of all the streams, the situation of each tract characterized by peculiar vegetation, not only within the area he has himself traversed, but perhaps for a hundred miles around it.  His acute observation enables him to detect the slightest undulations of the surface, the various changes of subsoil and alterations in the character of the vegetation that would be quite imperceptible to a stranger.  His eye is always open to the direction in which he is going; the mossy side of trees, the presence of certain plants under the shade of rocks, the morning and evening flight of birds, are to him indications of direction almost as sure as the sun in the heavens” (pp. 207-8).

I have seen enough of savages to be able to declare that nothing can be more admirable than this description of what a savage has to learn.  But it is incomplete.  Add to all this the knowledge which a savage is obliged to gain of the properties of plants, of the characters and habits of animals, and of the minute indications by which their course is discoverable:  consider that even an Australian can make excellent baskets and nets, and neatly fitted and beautifully balanced spears; that he learns to use these so as to be able to transfix a quartern loaf at sixty yards; and that very often, as in the case of the American Indians, the language of a savage exhibits complexities which a well-trained European finds it difficult to master:  consider that every time a savage tracks his game, he employs a minuteness of observation, and an accuracy of inductive and deductive reasoning which, applied to other matters, would assure some reputation to a man of science, and I think we need ask no further why he possesses such a fair supply of brains.  In complexity and difficulty, I should say that the intellectual labour of a “good hunter or warrior” considerably exceeds that of an ordinary Englishman.  The Civil Service Examiners are held in great terror by young Englishmen; but even their ferocity never tempted them to require a candidate to possess such a knowledge of a parish, as Mr. Wallace justly points out savages may possess of an area a hundred miles, or more, in diameter.

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that a savage has more brains than seems proportioned to his wants, all that can be said is that the objection to natural selection, if it be one, applies quite as strongly to the lower animals.  The brain of a porpoise is quite wonderful for its mass, and for the development of the cerebral convolutions.  And yet since we have ceased to credit the story of Arion, it is hard to believe that porpoises are much troubled with intellect:  and still more difficult is it to imagine that their big brains are only a preparation for the advent of