Consider Her Ways by Frederick Philip Grove

I must now reach back in time and resume the narrative at the point where we entered the Oecodoma city.

Not far from the northern end of this barrier across the Narrows and just west of it, stood a city built by man. Although the detailed zoological and ecological study of man was not directly comprised in our instructions, I thought it inadvisable to neglect this opportunity. Man, forming part of that large division of the animal kingdom called the Mammalia, had been studied previously by a number of expeditions, but with inconclusive results. It was known that, by virtue of a number of peculiarities, he occupied a somewhat unique position within that group. It was suspected, on the ground of things reported by trustworthy observers, that his position among mammals might somewhat resemble the position of ants among insects. It had even been suggested that his development, in the past and in certain branches of his kind, had almost reached the same level as ours today; in that case he would represent that most interesting type of a retrograded or degenerate race; and I must confess I was inclined to embrace this view. One daring speculator had even hinted that perhaps man possessed, or at least had possessed, that same imperial gift of reason which is universally held to be the distinguishing mark of ants.