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1  Missile.

2 Armes d’hast.—a. Percussive or striking; b. Thrusting, piercing, or ramming; c. Cutting or ripping; d. Notched or serrated.

Colonel A. Lane Fox (‘Prim. Warfare,’ p. 11) thus classifies the weapons of ‘Animals and Savages’:—

Defensive. Offensive. Stratagems. Hides Piercing Flight Solid plates Striking Ambush Jointed plates Serrated Tactics Scales Poisoned Columns Missiles Leaders Outposts Artificial defences War cries

My list is less comprehensive, and it bears only upon the origin of the Arme blanche.

I. As has been said, the missile, the βέλος, is probably the first form of weapon, and is still the favourite with savage Man. It favours the natural self-preservative instinct. El-Khauf maksúm—‘fear is distributed,’—say the Arabs. ‘The shorter the weapon the braver the wielder’ has become a well-established fact. The savage Hunter, whose time is his own, would prefer the missile; but the Agriculturist, compelled to be at home for seed-time and harvest, would choose the hand-to-hand weapon which shortens action. We may hold, without undue credulity, that the throwing-arm is common to beasts, after a fashion, and to man. Among the so-called ‘missile fishes’[19] the Toxotes,[20] or Archer, unerringly brings down insects with a drop of water when three or four feet high in the air. The Chætodon, or archer fish of Japan, is kept in a glass vase, and fed by holding flies at the end of a rod a few inches above the surface: it strikes them with an infallible aim. This process is repeated, among the mammalia, by the Llama, the Guanaco and their congeners, who propel their acrid and fetid saliva for some distance and with excellent aim.[21] And stone-throwing held its own for many an age, as we read in the fifteenth century:—