But such marks as animals leave on sand or wood, in grass or bushes, can hardly be called writing by the widest interpretation, for they lack intention. To be sure, when the grizzly bear rears its ugly bulk against a redwood-tree and gashes the loose bark in order to stretch its claws, it leaves a sign behind which some animals, particularly those of its own race and those on which it most preys, undoubtedly can read. But the nearest approach, in an animal, to intentional acts designed to be seen or enjoyed by others, is the decoration of its curious house by the bower-bird of New Guinea. A pair of these birds will build an arbor of twigs and leaves for no apparent purpose except their own amusement, and then decorate it with bright feathers and stones, as if they experienced pleasure in looking at it and wished other birds or creatures to see it. But even this is far from the rudest beginnings of writing. Man writes from forethought and for the instruction of himself and others. Speech is a gift; writing an invention. Speech we share with the animals. Those parts of speech which we call ejaculations can not be separated from the cries of animals. You may have heard man called the talking animal. Would it not be better to call him the writing animal? His invention of writing separates him more than does articulate speech, from the lower orders of animate beings. No matter now how far back we go, or how far down we dig through the earth’s crust to the layers of soil deposited nobody knows how long ago, wherever we find things fashioned by men, we find pictures that show the groping toward some kind of writing. Now, it is a portrait of a horse carved in outline on a piece of bone; at another time, it is a mammoth attacked by a hunter under cover of a wolf-skin. The difference between the brains of man and the brains of the highest animals is so great that, however we may suspect from other things that there was an age when men were little stronger in wits than the apes, we have as yet no certainty where and when a race of men lived who could not at least draw a picture in outline. The Bushmen, an African nation thought to be the lowest of living men in intellect, are now known to be marvelously expert in drawing. They cover the walls of their caves with well-drawn portraits of wild beasts.