Have the authors considered weaver birds, beavers, termites, bees, wasps,
spiders, etc.? As an anthropologist I have long thought the focus on tool
use/manufacture misplaced as a defining behavioral propensity of _Homo
sapiens_. However, find me a crow (or a chimp or parrot for that matter)
that can generate an uncountably large number of meaningful sentences and
I'll step down from my pedestal.

Gene Hunn.

On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Dale Goble wrote:

>
> Today's New York Times science section has an article titled, "Second
> Greatest Toolmaker? A Title Crows Can Crow About." The article reports
> on a paper published in the January 18th issue of _Nature_ by Dr. Gavin
> R. Hunt on field observations of a species of crow -- Corvus moneduloides
> -- found inthe New Caledonia island group.
>
> Dr. Hunt reported observing that "crow tool manufacture had three
> features new to tool use in free-living nonhumans, and that only appeared
> in early human tool-using cultures after the Lower Paleolithic: a high
> degree of standardization, distinctly discrete tool types with definite
> imposition of form in tool shaping, and the use of hooks."
>
> dale goble
> moscow
>