Primate of All England

“ Soon after this young couple forsook their associates to found the human race, their Primates father became disconsolate—he was heartbroken. He refused to eat, even when food was brought to him by his other children. His brilliant offspring having been lost, life did not seem worth living among his ordinary fellows ”

“ The consequence is that many beasts are raised with little care, and with scarcely any attention to the breeds. We find many good ones. In spite of bad grooming, little training, and hard work, I greatly question if even England possesses a larger proportion of good horses, comparing the population of the two countries, than America. Our animals are quicker footed, and at trotting, I suspect, we could beat the world; Christendom, certainly. ”

“ These warm expressions of esteem and regard, if known to the new primate, must have inspired him with renewed courage to accept the grave responsibilities imposed upon him, and truly, if ever man required the support of friends to nerve him to encounter dangers and unheard-of opposition, he did. ”

“ And now, after almost nine hundred generations of development, covering about twenty-one thousand years from the origin of the dawn mammals, the Primates suddenly gave birth to two remarkable creatures, the first true human beings. ”

“ The four-winged cherubs are the guardian angels who are watching over the lost fortunes of the Stuart family, and the rose of England and the lilies of France which form the border are emblematical of the royal lineage of their lost King's family. The hound and hare still chase each other gaily round the border, and in the picture the hare is seen emerging, like the Stuarts, from exile and obscurity. ”

“ During the last four or live years a few spirited English noblemen have made the experiment of breeding foreign deer in their parks, and have obtained such a decided success, that it may be hoped their example will induce others to follow in a course which will eventually give to England's rural scenery a new element of beauty, and to English tables a fresh viand of the choicest character. ”

“ I accidentally discovered she firmly believed that the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of animals was a dogma of the Church of England—a conclusion founded upon the circumstance, that some years before, an English family holding this theory had resided in Macerata, where they excited much notice by purchasing and fondly cherishing sundry diseased horses, half-starved sheep, and other suffering quadrupeds, in whom, they declared, dwelt the spirits of their departed relations. ”

“ When about fourteen years of age, they fled from the tribe, going west to raise their family and establish the new species of Primates. And these new creatures are very properly denominated Primates since they were the direct and immediate animal ancestors of the human family itself. ”

“ He strode forward to hasten the first meeting between Primate and Feline on the common ground of civilization.
VI.
The catman's steps faltered. This alien, that had come from some distant star, was definitely primate in evolution. He knew primates—they had primates on Sscantoo, here—and primates were nasty animals. They were filled with curiosity—mass curiosity—that had been the basis for a platitude on Sscantoo: "Curiosity saved a mansee." When you killed or wounded a primate, the woods would fill up with curious, chattering hordes of his fellow-primates. ”

“ His origin can be specified even more accurately. The mammals fall into a number of fairly distinct groups, such as the Carnivores or flesh-eating animals, the Ungulates or hoofed animals, the Rodents or gnawing animals, the Cetaceans or whales, and several others. The highest of these mammalian groups, as usually reckoned, is the Primate or “first” order of the animal kingdom. This Primate group includes the various monkeys and apes and man. The ancestors of the human race are therefore to be sought somewhere in the order of Primates, past or present. ”

“ The same feeling of desire to display their skill and enterprise in search after birds' nests in early life renders the youth of England the enemy almost of the whole animal creation throughout their after career. The boy prides himself on his dexterity in throwing a stone or a stick; and he practises on almost every animal that comes in his way, till he never sees one without the desire to knock it down, or at least to hit it ”

“ Watch observes:
'I have positively ordered a trio of Windsor Fowls of Prince Albert, for you. It is the best breed in England, and they are much run after, and cannot be had without giving previous notice; but you are safe to have yours. I have engaged a friend to choose yours for you; and I consider it a great thing to get them direct from the Prince, for you must be aware that persons generally cannot exactly pick and choose from the Prince's own stock. ”

“ My mother and father were gentle, bookish creatures with no understanding of animals. Even if a pony had to be bought for us children, every male thing of the family—uncles, nephews, tenth cousins—was summoned from every corner of England for his advice and experience. ”

“ I said to him, "by your accent and by the looseness of your conversation, that you, like all Catholic Cats, are inclined to laugh and make sport, believing that confession will purge you, but in England we have another standard of morality. We are always respectable, even in our pleasures." [Pg 117]
This young Cat, struck by the majesty of English cant, listened to me with a kind of attention which made me hope I could convert him to Protestantism. ”

“ We now come to the noble Dog, indued by the Creator with qualities which especially fit him to be the companion of man. Such he is in all parts of the world; and although wild dogs exist, they appear, like savage human beings, to have retrograded from a state of civilisation. The mongrels and curs, too, have evidently deteriorated, and lost the characteristic traits of their nobler ancestors.
What staunch fidelity, what affection, what courage, what devotion and generosity does the dog exhibit! ”

“ The primate regarded it as a political axiom, that, in order to conserve and advance the unity of the empire, the particularism of the several races and the struggles of their chiefs and princes for independence should be crushed. ”

“ In your epoch, primates ate many domestic animals who differed less in intelligence quotient from them than differ civilized Tegurians from human primates like yourself ... the gap today is much greater.... ”

“ Are we, then, to explain the more amiable side of human nature, partly at least, by derivation from the frugivorous Primates, extensively modified by our wolfish adaptation, but surviving as latent character? ”

“ Strangely enough, the practical importance of knowledge of the primates has seldom been dwelt upon even by those biologists who are especially interested in it. It is, therefore, appropriate to emphasize the strictly human value of the work for which I am seeking provision. ”

“ But some custom must have been established for feeding the women and children. No doubt when fruits were obtainable, the women and children largely subsisted upon them. But the strong instinct of parental care in Primates, the long youth of children, and the greater relative inferiority of females to males (common to anthropoids and savages) than is found amongst dogs and wolves, must have made the human pack from the first differ in many ways from a pack of wolves. ”

“ The chief thought that has occurred to me as the result of my tour is that we in England take little interest in the breeding and acclimatization of wild animals as compared with the Germans, or even Americans. ”

“ When dogs and horses became the servants and companions of men, and when various beasts and birds came to be kept as pets, the mental and even the moral processes characterising the intelligence of these animals must have been seen by their masters to be identical in kind with those of their own minds. Do we not even at the present day compare human characteristics with those of animals, the courage of the lion, the cunning of the fox, the fidelity of the dog, and the parental affection of the bird? ”

“ In England, if you happen to be the possessor of a dog, much of your time is taken up dragging him out of fights, quarrelling with the possessor of the other dog as to which began it, explaining to irate elderly ladies that he did not kill the cat, that the cat must have died of heart disease while running across the road, assuring disbelieving game-keepers that he is not your dog, that you have not the faintest notion whose dog he is. With the foreign dog, life is a peaceful proceeding. When the foreign dog sees a row, tears spring to his eyes: he hastens on and tries to find a policeman. ”

“ It is singular that it is only in England that you can find dogs, properly so called; abroad they have nothing but curs. I do not know anything more puzzling than the genealogy of the animals you meet with under the denomination of dogs in most of the capitals of Europe. ”

“ The number of primitive characters seen among the Primates, even in Man himself, is remarkable. Of these the more important are the five digits of both limbs and the plantigrade walk, the presence of clavicles and of a centrale, and the absence of a third trochanter. ”

“ We have now to consider an animal which has more interest for us than any member of the animal kingdom, with the single exception of Homo sapiens; indeed, many people, if asked to name the creature which feels for them the most disinterested friendship, the most devoted love, and which [Pg 99] shows the most constant and untiring kindness and attention, would without hesitation name the humble Carnivore rather than the arrogant and self-asserting Primate. ”

“ Another immigrant order of great interest, since we ourselves belong to it, the Primates, made its first appearance in North America in the Wasatch, but was not destined to long life or great importance in this continent, where it did not survive the Eocene. ”

“ Someone has said that English Society revolves round the King and the horse—or, as he might have added, round the supreme symbols of human and animal development. That towards which everyone is striving—to breed finer and stronger creatures—is crystallized in these two superlative types. ”

“ He brought over with him the animals which are domesticated in England to-day—the dog, the sheep, the cow, and the pig. Instead of the woolly rhinoceros and the curly-tusked mammoth, we find forest and marsh alive with wild boars, reindeer, wolves, and wild cats. ”

“ I suppose, the dogs and horses must be thanked for the fact, that the men have muscles almost as tough and supple as their own. If in every efficient man, there is first a fine animal, in the English race it is of the best breed, a wealthy, juicy, broad-chested creature, steeped in ale and good cheer, and a little overloaded by his flesh. Men of animal nature rely, like animals, on their instincts. The Englishman associates well with dogs and horses. ”

“ Our mariners are sea-dogs, and the modern bards vouch us to be in general boys of the bull-dog breed. The mascot bull-dogs in the shops at this moment serve the same end as the mascot emblems and mysterious hieroglyphics of the ancients, and the Egyptian who carried a scarabæus or an Eye of Horus, acted without doubt from the same simple, homely impulse as drives the modern Englishman to hang up the picture of a repulsive animal subscribed, “What we have we’ll hold”. ”

“ One of his lordship's conceptions was, that of training animals to purposes that nature never designed them for; and, if lions had been accessible in this country, he would probably have put a snaffle into the mouth of the forest king, and have trained him for hunting, unless his lordship had been devoured in the experiment. ”

“ It has been completely transformed by human selection; indeed, it may be said that the dog in the last ten or fifteen thousand years has made greater advances in sagacity and civilisation than any other animal, scarcely even excepting man. ”

“ The primacy of the animal kingdom remains, of course, undisputed; but the dog, the elephant, the horse, the beaver,—nay, the parrot, the bee, and the ant,—have found learned and uncompromising advocates of their claims to the honors of the second rank. ”

“ The Norman kings of England were for the most part sturdy soldiers, with a passion for the chase in their leisure hours. Very naturally, therefore, such pets as they possessed came under the head of knightly belongings, and were either horse and hound or hawk. In truth, they were too stern a race to spend much time in endearments of any kind. We can hardly imagine them tending a “fringie-pawe,” or toying with “spaniels gentle.” The aristocratic greyhound was their favorite instead, and they spared no pains to develop its peculiar excellencies. ”

“ All happiness and glory to them both; and when a child was born to them he would be its godfather, and if happily by that time there was a queen, she should be its godmother.
Then he recalled their happy boyhood's days in East Anglia, that joyful time when they first hunted and had many a mishap and fell from their horses when they pursued hare and deer and bustard in the wide open stretches of sandy country; and in the autumn and winter months when they were wild-fowling in the great level flooded lands where the geese and all wild-fowl came in clouds and myriads. ”

“ Breeds which at the present time are highly valued in India are considered worthless in England. No doubt, when breeds are neglected, they degenerate; still we may believe that, as long as they are kept under the same conditions of life, characters once gained will be partially retained for a long time, and may form the starting-point for a future course of selection. ”