by their short Baboon-like tail. The Bald Uakari (_U. calva_) of the
Rio Negro, and the closely allied _U. rubicunda_ of the Upper Amazons,
are remarkable for their scarlet face, which forms a striking contrast
to the long, silky, whitish hair covering the body. According to Mr.
Bates, the Uakaris live in forests which are inundated during a great
part of the year, and never descend to the ground; they appear to be
rare and of local distribution. The third species, _U. melanocephala_,
differs considerably from both the others. The cæcum of _U. calva_,
according to Mr. F. E. Beddard, measures upwards of “10 inches along
the greater curvature; it is separated from the colon by a very marked
constriction; it is not sacculated, and when fully distended with air is
curved on itself into a little less than a circle; it is furnished with a
well-developed median frenum carrying blood-vessels.” A similar type of
cæcum is also found in _Callithrix_ and _Pithecia_.
Subfamily =Nyctipithecinæ=.—Lower incisors vertical; hyoid normal; tail
long, non-prehensile; pollex well developed.
Three genera are included in this subfamily, the species being partly
insectivorous.
[Illustration: FIG. 339.—The Moloch Teetee (_Callithrix moloch_). From
_Archives du Muséum_, vol. iv. pt. 3.]
_Callithrix._[669]—Head small, depressed, and not elongated; nares widely
separated; canines small; angle of mandible expanded as in _Pithecia_;
tail with long hair.
This genus comprises several small species, mostly from Brazil and the
Amazons, and commonly known as Teetees, one of the best-known species
(_C. moloch_, Fig. 339) being represented in the accompanying woodcut.
The smaller eyes and the more widely separated nostrils distinguish them
from _Nyctipithecus_; while the small canines and the bushy tail readily
mark their distinction from _Chrysothrix_. Remains of _Callithrix_ have
been found in the Brazilian caves.
_Chrysothrix._[670]—Head greatly elongated; orbits large and closely
approximated; canines well developed; tail with comparatively short hair.
[Illustration: FIG. 340.—The Lemurine Douroucouli (_Nyctipithecus
lemurinus_). From _Archives du Muséum_, vol. iv, pl. 2.]
The small Squirrel Monkeys, of which four species have been described,
are characterised by the great backward projection of the occipital
region of the skull, and by orbits approximating in size to those of the
next genus.
_Nyctipithecus._[671]—Head rounded; orbits very large, separated by a
narrow septum; nares somewhat approximated.
The Douroucoulis (Fig. 340), as the members of this genus are called, are
of nocturnal habits, in association with which the eyes are of enormous
dimensions, as in the Lemuroid genus _Loris_. The following account, of
two species of this genus is taken from Mr. Bates’s _Naturalist on the
Amazons_: “They sleep all day long in hollow trees, and come forth to
prey on insects and eat fruit only in the night. They are of small size,
the body being about a foot long, and the tail 14 inches, and are thickly
clothed with soft gray and brown fur, similar in substance to that of the
Rabbit. Their physiognomy reminds one of the Owl or Tiger-Cat; the face
is rounded and encircled by a ruff of whitish fur; the muzzle is not at
all prominent; the mouth and chin are small; the ears are very short,
scarcely appearing above the hair of the head; and the eyes are large
and yellowish in colour, imparting the staring expression of nocturnal
birds of prey. The forehead is whitish, and decorated with black stripes,
which in one of the species (_N. trivirgatus_) continue to the crown,
and in the other (_N. felinus_) meet on the top of the forehead. _N.
trivirgatus_ was first described by Humboldt, who discovered it on the
banks of the Cassiquiare, near the headquarters of the Rio Negro.”
Subfamily =Cebinæ=.—Lower incisors vertical; hyoid bone normal; tail long
and prehensile; pollex present or absent.
This subfamily includes the typical members of the family, which are
arranged in four genera.
_Ateles._[672]—Form slender; limbs very long; fur not woolly; pollex
absent; tail naked beneath distally; nails not much laterally compressed
and pointed.
This genus includes the well-known Spider Monkeys (Fig. 341), which by
their long limbs and tail are admirably adapted to a purely arboreal
life, although they lack the active and agile habits of the Old World
Gibbons. The tail with the under surface of its extremity naked affords
the most completely prehensile type of this organ, and can sustain the
weight of the whole body. Objects are not unfrequently grasped by it and
brought within reach of the hand or mouth. Owing to the absence of the
pollex the power of grasping is very imperfect in the hand. At least
fourteen species of this genus have been described, among the best-known
being _A. melanochir_ (Fig. 341), _A. paniscus_ of Guiana, _A. geoffroyi_
of Central America, _A. ater_ of Eastern Peru, and _A. hybridus_ of
Colombia.
_Eriodes._[673]—Form slender; limbs very long; fur woolly; internasal
septum narrower than usual in the family; pollex rudimentary; tail naked
beneath distally; nails exceedingly compressed laterally, and pointed.
This genus is represented by three species from South-East Brazil, which,
while closely allied to the true Spider Monkeys, differ by their woolly
hair, the narrow internasal septum, the presence of a rudimentary pollex,
and the great compression of the nails. The species are _E. arachnoides_,
_E. hemidactylus_, and _E. hypoxanthus_.
_Lagothrix._[674]—Form rather robust; limbs moderate; fur woolly; pollex
well developed; tail distally naked beneath.
[Illustration: FIG. 341.—The Black-handed Spider Monkey (_Ateles
melanochir_). From _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1871, pl. 15.]
The Woolly Monkeys differ from the preceding genera by the presence
of a well developed pollex. They resemble _Eriodes_ in their fur and
compressed nails, but differ in the more widely separated nares. The tail
resembles that of the preceding genera. Speaking of these Monkeys Mr.
Bates observes that “the Barrigudos are very bulky animals, whilst the
Spider Monkeys are remarkable for the slenderness of their bodies and
limbs. I obtained specimens of what have been considered two species,
one (_L. olivaceus?_) having the head clothed with gray, the other (_L.
humboldti_, Fig. 342) with black fur. They both live together in the same
places, and are probably only differently coloured individuals of one and
the same species. I sent home a very large male of one of these kinds,
which measured 27 inches in length of trunk, the tail being 26 inches
long; it was the largest monkey I saw in America, with the exception of
a black Howler, whose body was 28 inches in height. The skin of the face
in the Barrigudo is black and wrinkled, the forehead is low, with the
eyebrows projecting.... In the forests the Barrigudo is not a very active
animal; it lives exclusively on fruits, and is much persecuted by the
Indians on account of the excellence of its flesh as food.” Five species
are usually recognised, viz. _L. canus_, _L. humboldti_, _L. castelnaui_,
_L. tschudii_, and _L. geoffroyi_.
[Illustration: FIG. 342.—Humboldt’s Lagothrix (_Lagothrix humboldti_).
From _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1863, pl. 31.]
_Cebus._[675]—Form rather robust; limbs moderate; fur not woolly; pollex
well developed; tail not naked beneath distally.
This, the typical, genus includes the Sapajous or Capuchins (Fig.
343), which are so commonly seen in this country in captivity, being
the favourite Monkeys of itinerant musicians. They are smaller and
stouter in build than the Spider Monkeys, from which they are readily
distinguished by the well-developed pollex, and the absence of a naked
under surface to the extremity of the tail. At least twenty species
have been described (_C. fatuellus_, _C. lunatus_, _C. capucinus_, _C.
albifrons_, _C. hypoleucus_, etc.), but it is probable that some of these
are not entitled to stand, since there is a large amount of individual
variation. Fossil remains of species of _Cebus_ have been described from
the Pleistocene cavern-deposits of Brazil.
[Illustration: FIG. 343.—The White-cheeked Sapajou (_Cebus lunatus_).
From _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1865, pl. 45.]
_Family_ CERCOPITHECIDÆ.
Dentition: _i_ ²⁄₂, _c_ ¹⁄₁, _p_ ²⁄₂, _m_ ³⁄₃; total 32. Crowns of molars
elongated antero-posteriorly, with the tubercles forming a pair of
imperfect transverse ridges, and the last lower molar usually with a hind
talon. A bony external auditory meatus. A narrow internarial septum. Tail
non-prehensile. Ischiatic callosities present. Cheek-pouches present or
absent. Pollex, when present, opposable. Pelvic limbs never much longer
than pectoral. Sternum narrow. Cæcum without vermiform appendage.
This family includes all the Old World Apes, with the exception of the
_Simiidæ_, and may be divided into the subfamilies _Cercopithecinæ_ and
_Semnopithecinæ_.
Subfamily =Cercopithecinæ=.—Pelvic and pectoral limbs approximately
equal; tail variable; cheek-pouches present; stomach simple.
This subfamily comprises, the African Baboons, the common Indian
Monkeys constituting the genus _Macacus_, together with the African
_Cercopithecus_ and _Cercocebus_ and a few allied types.
_Cynocephalus._[676]—Muzzle much elongated (Fig. 344), with the nostrils
terminal; ischial callosities very large; tail more or less short; muzzle
swollen by enlargement of the maxillæ. Now confined to Africa and Arabia.
[Illustration: FIG. 344.—Skeleton of the Chacma Baboon (_Cynocephalus
porcarius_). From De Blainville.]
This genus comprises the typical Baboons, and we may select the
well-known Mandrill (_C. maimon_), of tropical West Africa, as a good
illustrative example. It may be mentioned in passing that the name
Mandrill appears to have been first introduced into English literature by
William Smith in his _New Voyage to Guinea_, published in 1744, wherein
he mentions among the animals of Sierra Leone one “called by the white
men in this country Mandrill,” but adds, “why it is so called I know
not.”[677] Smith gives sufficiently accurate details to show that his
animal is not that now called Mandrill, but the Chimpanzee. Buffon,
however, while quoting Smith’s description, transferred the name to the
very different species now under consideration, and to that it has been
attached ever since.
The Baboons generally are distinguished from most other Monkeys by
the comparative equality of the length of their limbs, which with the
structure of the vertebral column adapts them rather for quadrupedal
progression on the ground than for climbing among the branches of trees;
and some of them, like the South African Chacma (_C. porcarius_), of
which the skeleton is shown in Fig. 344, live habitually among rocks,
and are much less completely frugivorous than other Apes. They are also
remarkable for the great size of their face and jaws as compared with the
part of the skull which encloses the brain. The Mandrill, in addition
to these characters, is distinguished by the heaviness of its body,
stoutness and strength of its limbs, and exceeding shortness of its tail,
which is a mere stump, not 2 inches long, and usually carried erect. It
is, moreover, remarkable for the prominence of its brow ridges, beneath
which the small and closely approximated eyes are deeply sunk; the
immense size of the canine teeth; the great development of a pair of oval
bony prominences on the maxillary bones in front of the orbits, rising on
each side of the median line of the face, and covered by a longitudinally
ribbed naked skin; and more especially for the extraordinarily vivid
colouring of some parts of the skin. The body generally is covered with a
full soft coating of hair of a light olive-brown above and silvery-gray
beneath, and the chin is furnished underneath with a small pointed
yellow beard. The hair of the forehead and temples is directed upwards
so as to meet in a point on the crown, which gives the head a triangular
appearance. The ears are naked and of a bluish-black colour. The hands
and feet are naked and black. A large space around the greatly developed
ischial callosities, as well as the upper part of the insides of the
thighs, are naked and of a crimson colour, shading off on the sides to
lilac or blue, which, depending not upon pigment but upon injection of
the superficial blood-vessels, varies in intensity according to the
condition of the animal—increasing under excitement, fading during
sickness, and disappearing after death. But it is in the face that the
most remarkable disposition of vivid hues occur, more resembling those
of a brilliantly coloured flower than what might be expected in the
cutaneous covering of a mammal. The cheek-prominences are of an intense
blue, the effect of which is heightened by deeply sunk longitudinal
furrows of a darker tint, while the central line and termination of the
nose are a bright scarlet. Notwithstanding the beauty of these colours
in themselves, the whole combination, with the form and expression of
features, quite justifies Cuvier’s assertion that “il serait difficile de
se figurer un être plus hideux que le Mandrill.”
It is only to fully adult males that this description applies. The female
is of much smaller size, and of more slender make; and, though the
general tone of the hairy parts of the body is the same, the prominences,
furrows, and colouring of the face are very much less marked. The young
males have black faces. At the age of three the blue of the cheeks begins
to appear, but it is not until they are about five, when they cut their
great canine teeth, that they acquire the characteristic red of the end
of the nose.
[Illustration: FIG. 345.—The Yellow Baboon (_Cynocephalus babuin_). From
_Archives du Muséum_, Vol. ii. pl. 34.]
The Mandrills, especially the old males, are remarkable for the ferocity
of their disposition, as well as for other disagreeable qualities, which
are fully described in Cuvier’s account of the animal in _La Ménagerie
du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle_ (1801), but when young they can easily
be tamed. Like the rest of the Baboons, they appear to be rather
indiscriminate eaters, feeding upon fruit, roots, reptiles, insects,
scorpions, etc., and inhabit open rocky ground rather than forests. Not
much is known of the Mandrill’s habits in the wild state, nor of the
exact limits of its geographical distribution. The specimens brought to
Europe all come from the west coast of tropical Africa, from Guinea to
the Gaboon.
An allied species, the Drill (_C. leucophæus_), which resembles the
Mandrill in size, general proportions, and shortness of tail, but wants
the bright colouring of the face which makes that animal so remarkable,
inhabits the same district. Other well-known species are the Yellow
Baboon (_C. babuin_), of West Africa (Fig. 345); the Arabian Baboon
(_C. hamadryas_), of Arabia and Abyssinia; and the Anubis Baboon (_C.
anubis_), of West Africa.
It is very noteworthy from a distributional point of view, as showing
the former intimate connection between the faunas of the Oriental and
Ethiopian regions, that fossil remains of Baboons have been found in the
Pleistocene cavern-deposits of Madras, and also in the older Pliocene
beds of the Siwalik Hills in Northern India; the two species from the
latter deposits having been described as _C. subhimalayanus_ and _C.
falconeri_.
_Theropithecus._[678]—Distinguished from _Cynocephalus_ by the nostrils
not being terminal, but situated as in _Macacus_. This genus is
represented by the Abyssinian Gelada (_T. gelada_) and the allied _T.
obscurus_.
_Cynopithecus._[679]—The Black Ape of Celebes (_C. niger_) forms a
connecting link between the Baboons and the genus _Macacus_; the skull
differing from that of the latter in the development of longitudinal
ridges on the sides of the upper surface of the maxillæ, as in some of
the species of _Cynocephalus_. The muzzle is also more produced than in
_Macacus_.
[Illustration: FIG. 346.—The Tibetan Macaque (_Macacus tibetanus_). From
Milne-Edwards, _Recherches des Mammifères_, pl. 34.]
_Macacus._[680]—Muzzle considerably produced; nostrils not terminal;
cheek-pouches and ischial callosities well developed; tail long, short,
or absent; a distinct talon to the third lower molar.
With the exception of the Barbary Ape (_M. inuus_) of Northern Africa
and Gibraltar, the Macaques are now exclusively Asiatic, one species
(Fig. 346) occurring in Tibet, and another (_M. speciosus_) being found
in Japan. All these Monkeys are of stout build, and it is chiefly by the
greater production of the muzzle, the larger ischiatic callosities, and
the frequent shortness of the tail that they are distinguished from the
under-mentioned African genera. The transition from the longer-tailed
to the short-tailed forms is so complete that the proposed generic
separation of the latter as _Innus_ is impracticable. In _M. innus_ the
tail is wanting; in _M. tibetanus_ (Fig. 346) and _M. nemestrinus_ of
Tenasserim it is short; in the common Bengal Monkey (_M. rhesus_) it is
about one-half the length of the head and body, while in _M. cynomolgus_
and its allies it is still longer. In the Indian Lion-tailed Monkey (_M.
silenus_) it is tufted at the end.
The following summary of the habits of the Macaques is taken from Mr. W.
T. Blanford’s _Mammals of British India_: “The species of the present
genus resemble each other in their habits; they are found in flocks,
often of considerable size, and generally composed of individuals
of both sexes and of all ages. They are active animals, though less
rapid in their movements, whether on trees or on the ground than the
_Semnopitheci_. Their food is varied, most of the species, if not all,
eating insects as well as seeds, fruits, etc., and one kind feeding
partly on crustacea. They have occasionally been known to devour lizards,
and, it is said, frogs also. All have the habit of cramming food into
their cheek-pouches for mastication at leisure—a practice that must be
familiar to any one who has fed monkeys in confinement. The voice and
gestures of all the species are similar, and differ entirely from those
of both the Gibbons and _Semnopitheci_.... The majority of the species
are very docile when young. They thrive well, and several of them have
bred in confinement. The period of gestation is almost seven months, only
a single young one, as a rule, being produced at a birth. They become
adult at the age of four or five years, but breed earlier.”
The Common Indian _M. rhesus_ is found in the Himalaya at an elevation of
over 8000 feet.
Fossil remains of _Macacus_ are found in India in the Pleistocene of
Madras and the Pliocene of the Punjab; and they also occur in the
Pliocene of France and Italy, those from the latter deposits having been
incorrectly separated as _Aulaxinuus_. Part of the jaw of a Monkey from
the Pleistocene of Essex has been described as _Macacus pliocenus_, and
is very interesting as showing the presence of Apes in Europe at that
late period.
_Cercocebus._[681]—An African genus agreeing with _Macacus_ in the
presence of a hind talon to the third lower molar, but with the other
characters of _Cercopithecus_. The species of this genus are known as
Mangabeys, or White-eyelid Monkeys, and include _C. collaris_, _C.
fuliginosus_, _C. æthiops_, and _C. albigena_; all being from West Africa.
_Cercopithecus._[682]—Muzzle more or less short; ischial callosities
moderate; tail long; no talon to third lower molar. Build more slender
than in _Macacus_. Confined to Africa.
The members of this and the last genus include those Monkeys which in
their comparative slender build and length of tail make the nearest
approach to the next subfamily. There are numerous species, among which
the Green Monkey (_C. cullitrichus_), the Grivet (_C. griseo-viridis_),
the Vervet (_C. lalandi_), the Pluto Monkey (_C. pluto_, Fig. 347). The
Patas (_C. ruber_), the Diana Monkey (_C. diana_), and the Mona Monkey
(_C. mona_) are well-known types.
Subfamily =Semnopithecinæ=.[683]—Pelvic limbs longer than the pectoral,
tail very long; no cheek-pouches; stomach sacculated. Build slender.
[Illustration: FIG. 347.—The Pluto Monkey (_Cercopithecus pluto_). From
Gray, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1848, p. 57.]
This subfamily is represented by three genera, of which one is African
and two are Asiatic. Mr. W. T. Blanford, in his _Mammals of British
India_, observes that “the members of this subfamily are readily
distinguished by their slender form, and by the absence of cheek-pouches.
They are more purely herbivorous than the Macaque Monkeys, and a
considerable portion of their food consists of leaves and young shoots.
In consequence probably of the nature of their food, these Monkeys are
more delicate than the species of _Macacus_, and are thus less easily
kept in captivity. They are consequently far less well represented in
European museums, and have been less studied by European naturalists.
Very little is known of their general life-history or of their feeding
habits.”
Their digestive organs are much modified, the stomach attaining an
extraordinary complexity, which may be described as follows. An ordinary
stomach must be supposed to lie immensely elongated, and gradually
tapering from the cardiac end to a very prolonged, narrow, pyloric
extremity. Then two longitudinal muscular bands, corresponding in
situation to the greater and lesser curvatures of an ordinary stomach—the
former commencing just below the fundus, and the latter at the cardiac
orifice, and both proceeding towards the pylorus—are developed, so as
to pucker up the cavity into a number of pouches, exactly in the same
principle as the human colon is puckered up by its three longitudinal
bands. These pouches are largest and most strongly marked at the
œsophageal end, and becoming less and less distinct, quite cease several
inches before the pylorus is reached, the last part of the organ being
a simple smooth-walled tube. The fundus, or cardiac end of the stomach,
is formed by a single large sac, slightly constricted on its under
surface by the prolongation of the interior longitudinal band, or that
corresponding to the great curvature. The œsophagus enters into the upper
part of the left, or pyloric end of this sac, or rather at the point
of junction between it and the second (also a very large) sacculus.
Furthermore, the whole of this elongated sacculated organ is, by the
brevity, as it were, of the lesser curvature, coiled upon itself in an
irregularly spiral manner, so that when _in situ_ the pylorus comes to be
placed very near the œsophageal entrance.
[Illustration: FIG. 348.—Lateral view of the skull and palatal aspect of
the cranium of _Semnopithecus nemæus_. (From De Blainville.)]
_Nasalis._[684]—Skull resembling that of the _Cercopithecinæ_ in that the
lower border of the nasal bones extends considerably below the lower
border of the orbits, whereas in the other _Semnopithecinæ_ the aperture
of the nares extends upwards between the orbits. Nose produced into a
large proboscis. Other characters as in _Semnopithecus_.
This genus includes only the Proboscis Monkey (_N. larratus_) of Borneo,
remarkable for the great prolongation of the nose in the adult. In young
animals the nose is relatively much shorter, and bent upwards after the
manner of that of _Semnopithecus roxellanæ_ (Fig. 349).
[Illustration: FIG. 349.—_Semnopithecus roxellanæ._ (From Milne-Edwards,
_Recherches des Mammifères_, pl. 36.)]
_Semnopithecus._[685]—Pollex small; narial aperture extending upwards
between the orbits. Now confined to Asia.
This genus is characteristic of South-Eastern Asia from the Himalaya
southwards, the Oriental region being its headquarters. The development
of the muzzle is less than in the Macaques, and the facial angle is
higher, but it does not appear that this indicates greater intellectual
capacity. The outlying _S. roxellanæ_[686] (Fig. 349), of the highlands
of Eastern Tibet and Kansu, is remarkable for the peculiar upturned nose,
in which respect, as already mentioned, it recalls the young of _Nasalis
larvatus_. The genus is represented in India and Burma by no less than
fourteen species, of which the common Indian Langur, or Hanuman Monkey
(_S. entellus_) and the larger Himalayan Langur (_S. schistaceus_) are
two of the best known. In the former the length of the head and body is
about 24, and that of the tail 38 inches in adult males. This monkey,
owing to the veneration in which it is held by the Hindus, is a great
pest in many parts of India, frequently pilfering grain from the shops
in the native bazaars. According to Mr. Blanford, it “is usually found
in smaller or larger communities, composed of individuals of both sexes
and of all ages, the youngest clinging to their mothers and being carried
by them, especially when alarmed. An old male is occasionally found
solitary, as with so many other mammals.... Apart from villages, the
high trees on the banks of streams or of tanks, and, in parts of Central
India, rocky hills are the favourite haunts of these monkeys. Whether
on trees, on rocks, or on the ground, they are exceedingly active.” The
closely allied _S. schistaceus_ attains a larger average size, full grown
males attaining a length of 30 inches, the tail measuring 36 inches.
In the spring and winter this species may be observed in the Kashmir
Himalaya leaping among the snow-laden trees of the forest. In a fossil
state _Semnopithecus_ occurs in the Pleistocene and Pliocene of India,
and it has also been recorded from the Pliocene of France and Italy.
_Colobus._[687]—This African genus differs from _Semnopithecus_ in that
the pollex is absent or reduced to a small tubercle, which may or may not
carry a nail. About eleven species have been described, some of which are
remarkable for the beautiful mantle of long silky hair which hangs down
from each side of the body, and for their tufted tails. In _C. guereza_
from Abyssinia these are white, and the rest of the body and limbs black.
Others (as _C. satanas_) are entirely black. The skins of the long-haired
species are largely imported into Europe for the manufacture of ladies’
muffs, etc.
_Extinct Genera._—Certain types of Apes from the European Tertiaries
indicate genera referable to the _Cercopithecidæ_, but distinct from
any of those now living. Of these _Mesopithecus_,[688] from the Lower
Pliocene Pikermi beds of Attica, is known by almost complete skeletons,
and resembles _Macacus_ in the shortness and stoutness of the limbs, but
agrees with _Semnopithecus_ in the characters of the skull and teeth. An
allied Monkey from the Lower Pliocene of Perpignan, in France, differs
from _Mesopithecus pentelici_ by its superior size, proportionately more
produced muzzle, and larger hind talon to the last lower molar; it has
been described under the name of _Dolichopithecus_.[689]
The genus _Oreopithecus_[690] was founded upon the remains of an Ape
from the Middle Miocene of Monte Bamboli, in Tuscany, of somewhat larger
size than a Gibbon, and apparently presenting characters connecting
the _Cercopithecidæ_ and _Simiidæ_. According to Dr. Ristori,[691] it
resembles the former, especially _Cynocephalus_ and _Semnopithecus_, in
the long dental series and the elongation of the last molars; but in the
shortness of the face, rounding of the chin, and the diagonal arrangement
of the molar tubercles, it approximates to the _Simiidæ_, of which it may
have been an ancestral type.
_Family_ SIMIIDÆ.
Crowns of molars relatively wide, with the angles more or less rounded
off, the tubercles not forming transverse ridges, and the last lower
molar without a hind talon. No tail. No cheek-pouches. Ischiatic
callosities, if present, small. Pectoral limbs much longer than pelvic.
Sternum broad. Cæcum with vermiform appendage. Centrale of carpus
sometimes absent. Other characters as in _Cercopithecidæ_.
This family contains the true Anthropoid Old World Apes, namely the
Gibbons, Orangs, Chimpanzees, and Gorillas, which are the most highly
organised of all the Apes, and thus make the nearest approach to Man.
_Hylobates._[692]—Skull not produced at the vertex; body and limbs
slender, the pectoral limbs being so elongated that the hands reach
the ground when walking upright; hallux well developed; a centrale in
the carpus; and small ischiatic callosities. Size smaller than in the
following genera, the height of the largest species (_H. syndactylus_)
not much exceeding 3 feet. Now confined to Asia.
The Gibbons, or Long-armed Apes (Figs. 350, 351), are readily
distinguished from the remaining members of the family by the characters
given above, as well as by the circumstance that they are the only Apes
which habitually walk in an upright position. It is in these animals
that we meet with the last traces of the ischial callosities so largely
developed in the _Cercopithecidæ_. The species are now restricted to
South-Eastern Asia, being especially abundant in the Malay Archipelago
and adjacent regions.
The largest species is the Sumatran Siamang (_H. syndactylus_), which
attains a height of 3 feet, and has been generically separated by some
writers as _Siamanga_. It is remarkable as having a better developed
chin and wider sternum than any other Ape, and differs from the other
members of the genus by the circumstance that the second and third digits
of the pes are united by skin as far as their last joints. Exclusive of
this species, the Gibbons differ but little from one another in size and
general conformation, and since the colour of individuals undoubtedly
referable to a single species is remarkably variable, there is much
uncertainty about the number of species, and much confusion in the
nomenclature. Among well-marked species we may mention the Hoolock (_H.
hoolock_), ranging from the South of Assam through Sylhet and Cachar
to the Irawadi Valley near Bhamo, the White-handed Gibbon (_H. lar_,
Fig. 350), which is found in Tenasserim and throughout Malayana, the
Dun-coloured Gibbon (_H. entelloides_, Fig. 351) of Malayana, and the
Tufted Gibbon (_H. pileatus_) of Siam and Cambogia.
[Illustration: FIG. 350.—The White-handed Gibbon (_Hylobates lar_). From
Blanford, _Mammals of British India_, p. 8.]
The following account of the habits of the Gibbons is taken from Mr.
W. T. Blanford’s _Mammals of British India_. “Gibbons are thoroughly
arboreal, and Hoolocks are almost, if not entirely, confined to
hill-forest. They move chiefly by means of their long arms, by which
they swing themselves for prodigious distances from branch to branch
and from tree to tree. They descend hillsides at a surprising pace,
their descent being accomplished by grasping bamboos or branches that
bend beneath their weight, and allow them to drop until they can seize
the ends of other bamboos or branches lower on the slope, and take
another mighty swing downwards. They also ascend with great rapidity,
swinging themselves from tree to tree. When walking on the ground the
Hoolock rests on its hind feet alone, with the sole flat on the ground,
and the great toe widely separated from the other digits. The arms are
usually held upwards, sometimes horizontally, their great length giving
the animal a very peculiar aspect. Gibbons walk rather quickly, with a
waddling gait, and can easily be overtaken by men when on the ground. The
food of these Apes consists of fruit, leaves, young shoots, spiders (of
which they are very fond), insects, birds’ eggs, and almost certainly of
young birds, if not of any birds they can capture. Anderson found that
small birds were killed and devoured by Hoolocks in confinement with a
method and eagerness that showed this prey to be the natural food of the
Apes. The Hoolock drinks with its lips, putting its head down to the
water as Monkeys do. All species of _Hylobates_ have a powerful voice,
and the common name of the Hoolock is taken from its peculiar double
call, which is repeated several times. At a distance the sound much
resembles a human voice; it is a peculiar wailing note, audible from
afar, and in the countries inhabited by these animals is one of the most
familiar forest sounds. The calls commence at daybreak, and are continued
till 9 or 10 A.M., several of the flock joining in the cry, like hounds
giving tongue. After 9 or 10 o’clock in the morning the animals feed or
rest, and remain silent throughout the middle of the day, but recommence
calling towards evening, though to a less extent than in the earlier part
of the day.”
[Illustration: FIG. 351.—The Dun-coloured Gibbon (_Hylobates
entelloides_). From _Archiv. du Muséum_, vol. ii. pl. 29.]
The skull of the Gibbons, although agreeing with that of other Apes in
its prognathism, presents a somewhat human appearance, and the molar
teeth are also very like diminutive human molars. In the anterior inward
inclination of the two series of cheek-teeth and the inward position
of the upper premolars the Gibbons make an approach to the human type
unknown in other Apes.
The figure of the liver of one species of this genus is introduced to
show the general absence of lateral fissures and the small size of the
caudate lobe (_c_) characteristic of the liver of all the _Simiidæ_,
except _Gorilla_ (see p. 706), as well as that of Man. Another specimen
of the liver of the same species showed scarcely any trace of a caudate
lobe.
[Illustration: FIG. 352.—Under surface of the liver of _Hylobates lar._
_u_, Umbilical fissure; _p_, portal fissure; _vc_, vena cava; _l_, left
lobe; _r_, right lobe; _s_, Spigelian lobe; _c_, caudate lobe; _g_,
gall-bladder.]
A fossil Ape from the Middle Miocene of France, originally described as
_Pliopithecus_, indicates an extinct Gibbon which does not appear to be
generically separable from _Hylobates_.
_Simia._[693]—Skull (Fig. 353) produced at the vertex; body and limbs
massive; the pectoral limbs reaching to the ankle; a centrale in the
carpus; hallux very small; sixteen dorso-lumbar vertebræ, and twelve
pairs of ribs; no ischiatic callosities. Oriental.
[Illustration: FIG. 353.—Side view of the skull of adult Orang (_Simia
satyrus_). From _Trans. Zool. Soc._ vol. i. pl. 53.]
This genus includes the large red-haired Apes from Sumatra and Borneo
commonly known as Orangs, or Orang-Utans,[694] of which there is probably
only a single species (_S. satyrus_). These animals inhabit the swampy
forests near the coasts; and the males attain a height of about 4 feet 4
inches. The body is very bulky and the legs exceedingly short, but the
arms are very long, reaching in the erect posture down to the ankles.
The Orang walks resting on the knuckles of the hands and the outer sides
of the feet, with the soles of the latter turned mainly inwards, as in
Fig. 354. Its movements appear to be slow and deliberate, and in those
specimens which have been kept in captivity in this country the demeanour
is languid and melancholy, although this is far from being the case with
those shown in the more congenial climate of the Zoological Gardens at
Calcutta. The habits of these animals are arboreal, and they build a kind
of shelter or nest of boughs and leaves; their food appears to consist
mainly of fruits, and is exclusively of a vegetable nature. The whole
of the body is clothed with long hair of a reddish-brown colour, and
full-grown males have a well developed beard; the males not unfrequently
also develop a large warty protuberance, formed of fibro-cellular tissue,
on either side of the face. The hands are long, and are characterised
by the small size of the pollex, which does not reach to the end of
the metacarpal of the index finger. The feet have a similar structure,
the hallux only reaching to the middle of the proximal phalange of the
adjacent toe, and being often destitute not only of a nail, but likewise
of the terminal phalange. The presence of a centrale in the carpus is a
feature in which _Simia_ agrees with _Hylobates_ and the lower Apes, and
differs from the two following genera and Man. With very rare exceptions
the number of dorso-lumbar vertebræ is sixteen, of which twelve carry
ribs, and therefore belong to the dorsal series, while the remaining
four are lumbar. The distinction between the last lumbar and the first
sacral vertebræ is clearly marked in young skeletons by the additional
pleurapophysial ossifications (sacral ribs) in the transverse processes
of the latter. Thus though _Simia_ presents a closer resemblance to
Man than does _Anthropopithecus_ in the number of ribs, it differs
in the more important characters of that of the whole series of
trunk-vertebræ.[695] The hemispheres of the brain are much convoluted;
the whole brain being more human-like than in any other Ape. The larynx
is remarkable for having a prolongation from each ventricle, which in the
adult become of enormous dimensions, and unite in front of the trachea to
form one large sac extending downwards between the muscles to the axilla.
[Illustration: FIG. 354.—The Orang-Utan (_Simia satyrus_). From Mr.
Wolf’s sketch at the Zoological Gardens.]
The skull of the Orang (Fig. 353) is characterised by its highly vaulted
cranial portion, which is comparatively short (brachycephalic). The
sagittal crest is well developed on the vertex, and has a highly convex
contour; the superciliary ridges are but moderately developed, and do not
stand out in the prominent manner so characteristic of the Gorilla. The
aperture of the nares in the skull is more pear-shaped than in the two
following genera.
The canines of the male Orang attain a great development; and the molars
are characterised by the complex structure of their cusps and the
numerous rugosities on the crown surface. The outer border of the upper
premolars is placed in the same line as that of the molars.
The broken canine tooth of a large Anthropoid Ape from the Lower Pliocene
of the Siwalik Hills probably indicates the existence at that period of a
species of _Simia_ in Northern India.
_Gorilla._[696]—Skull not produced at the vertex; body and limbs massive,
the pectoral limb not reaching below the middle of the lower leg (Fig.
355); no centrale in the carpus: hallux well developed; seventeen
dorso-lumbar vertebræ, of which thirteen carry ribs; no ischiatic
callosities. Male much larger than female, and with very strongly marked
cranial ridges, which are wanting in the latter. Mandibular symphysis
long. Ethiopian.
The well-known Gorilla (Fig. 356), of which there seems to be only one
species (_G. savagei_), is found in Western Equatorial Africa, chiefly or
entirely in the district enclosed by the Cameroon and Congo rivers. It
is the largest of all the Apes, its bulk considerably exceeding that of
man, although from the shortness of the legs it appears never to attain a
greater height than 5½ feet. The first introduction of this animal to the
notice of zoologists was made in 1847 by Dr. Thomas Savage, but it was
not fully known till many years later.
[Illustration: FIG. 355.—Skeleton of the Gorilla. (From De Blainville.)]
The skin of the Gorilla is entirely black, the hair being blackish, but
turning more or less gray in old individuals. The arms reach down as far
as the middle of the lower leg; while the pollex extends only a short
distance beyond the base of the first phalange of the index finger,
and the hallux reaches nearly as far as the distal extremity of the
corresponding digit of the foot. The digits of both the hand and foot are
united together by integument as far as the distal extremities of the
first phalanges. The larynx has very capacious air-sacs, which meet in
front of the trachea and communicate with the ventricles; and in advanced
age these sacs may extend to the axilla. The ears are relatively small.
The skull is of an elongated or dolichocephalic type; that of the adult
male being characterised by the enormous development of the supraorbital
ridges, which form a kind of penthouse over the eyes, and contribute to
the peculiarly ferocious appearance of the animal. The sagittal crest is
also very large. The canine teeth of the male are very large, and are
inclined outwards in both jaws. In the cheek-teeth the upper premolars
are of considerable antero-posterior extent, with their outer border
placed in the same line as that of the molars; and the third upper molar
is larger than either of the others.
[Illustration: FIG. 356.—The Gorilla (_Gorilla savagei_). From _Trans.
Zool. Soc._ vol. iv. pl. 43.]
The posterior cervical vertebræ are characterised by the great height
of their neural spines, which thus form a strong basis for the powerful
cervical muscles supporting the massive skull. In some instances
the fourth lumbar vertebra becomes ankylosed to the sacrum, as is
occasionally found to be the case in some of the lower human races.
In the absence of a centrale to the carpus, and also in the number of
the dorso-lumbar vertebræ, the present and following genus resemble man;
although they both differ in having thirteen in place of twelve pairs of
ribs.
The brain of the Gorilla, according to Dr. Hartmann, resembles that
of the Orang in the complexity of its convolutions, and is thereby
distinguished from that of the Chimpanzee. In form it is of the long oval
characteristic of Man; the brain of the Chimpanzee and Orang being more
rounded.
Gorillas live in family parties in the depths of the dense forests of
Western Equatorial Africa, seeking their food during the day, while at
night it is said that the female and young ascend a tree at the foot of
which the male sleeps. They walk with the backs of their closed hands and
the flat soles of the feet placed on the ground. Although there has been
much exaggeration on this point, it appears certain that the male Gorilla
is an extremely ferocious and dangerous animal when brought to bay, but
the statements as to its making unprovoked assaults on men do not appear
authentic. They utter deep guttural sounds, which on some occasions may
be described as grunts and at others as a roar.
_Anthropopithecus._[697]—One of the most important differences of this
genus from the preceding is the absence of any marked disparity between
the two sexes, either in the size or the conformation of the skull,
although the male can always be distinguished by the larger size of the
canine teeth. The mandibular symphysis is also much shorter. Differences
in the characters of the teeth are described below. The genus is confined
at the present day to the Ethiopian region.
The Chimpanzees (Fig. 357) inhabit Western and Central Equatorial
Africa; and there has been much discussion whether they should all be
included under one specific name (_A. troglodytes_), or whether there are
really two or more species. A female specimen now living in the London
Zoological Gardens, characterised among other distinctive features by the
nearly bald head, clearly indicates, however, a second species, which
probably corresponds to the imperfectly defined _A. calvus_ of Du Chaillu.
The region inhabited by the Chimpanzees extends from the Gambia to the
Benguela, reaching as far inland as 28° E. long. The Common Chimpanzee is
a smaller animal than the Gorilla, its height not exceeding 5 feet. In
colour it is darker than the latter, and the ears are relatively larger.
In the upright position the arms reach only a short distance below the
knee, in which respect the Chimpanzee is more human-like than any of the
other Apes. The face is furnished with distinct whiskers, eyebrows, and
eyelashes. The pollex reaches nearly or quite to the base of the first
phalange of the index finger, and the hallux to the base of the second
phalange of the corresponding digit of the foot. The laryngeal sacs are
as largely developed as in the Gorilla.
[Illustration: FIG. 357.—The Chimpanzee (_Anthropopithecus troglodytes_).
From Mr. Wolf’s drawing of a young individual in the Zoological Society’s
Gardens.]
Although the skull of the Chimpanzee has distinct superciliary ridges,
yet the high bony crests of the calvarium of the male Gorilla are
wanting, and the whole coronal region of the skull is more rounded and
far less rugged.
The canine teeth of the male Chimpanzee are relatively much smaller than
in the Gorilla and Orang. The upper molars are characterised by the
third one being smaller than either of the other two, as well as by the
presence of an indistinct cingulum on their inner surfaces. The upper
premolars differ from those of the other genera of the family by the
shortness of their antero-posterior diameter, and also by the larger
size of their external as compared with their internal cusps; while the
outer border of these teeth is placed internally to that of the upper
molars. In all these respects the teeth of the Chimpanzee make a decided
approximation to the human type.
Many young individuals of the Chimpanzee have been brought to Europe, but
they appear to succumb sooner or later to the effects of an unsuitable
climate. All these examples show that the disposition of this Ape is
gentle, lively, and intelligent, and in all respects markedly opposite
to that of the Orang. In a wild state these Apes are essentially
forest-dwellers, and are more arboreal in their habits than the Gorilla.
They live either in families, or in small parties of several families.
Frequently at least they construct a kind of nest in the trees as a
sleeping-place; the male being said to sleep on a forked branch below the
level of this nest. In walking the Chimpanzee usually supports himself on
the backs of his closed fingers, and either on the soles of the feet or
on the closed toes.
From a distributional point of view the discovery of a fossil Ape in the
Pliocene of the Punjab, apparently closely allied to the Chimpanzee,
is of great interest. This determination rests upon the evidence of an
imperfect palate originally described under the name of _Palæopithecus_,
but subsequently referred to the present genus. The teeth of this jaw
present all the essential characters of those of the Chimpanzee, but
the two series of cheek-teeth have a slight anterior convergence, the
premolars are shorter in the antero-posterior direction than is usually
the case in that species, and the outer incisor is relatively narrower
than in the latter. In these features the extinct _A. sivalensis_ makes a
nearer approximation to the human type than is the case with its living
congeners.
_Dryopithecus._[698]—The extinct _Dryopithecus_ of the Middle Miocene of
France is represented by a single species of the approximate size of the
Chimpanzee, and appears to be the most generalised member of the family.
According to the recent observations of Professor Gaudry,[699] while it
resembles the Gorilla in that the two series of lower cheek-teeth diverge
anteriorly and the penultimate premolar is larger than the last of that
series, it differs in having a much longer and narrower mandibular
symphysis, and thus indicates a transition to the _Cercopithecidæ_. A
gradual transition in the form of the mandible may, indeed, be traced
from _Dryopithecus_, through _Gorilla_, to _Anthropopithecus_; the latter
having a short and wide symphysis, with the two series of cheek-teeth
slightly converging anteriorly, and the penultimate premolar being not
larger than the last. In all these specialised characters the jaw of
the Chimpanzee approximates to that of Man, in which the symphysis is
still further shortened and widened, and the anterior convergence of the
cheek-teeth so much increased as to produce a horse-shoe-like form in the
whole dental series.
_Family_ HOMINIDÆ.
In the _Systema Naturæ_ of Linnæus Man was separated only generically
from the Apes, but in the next great work which exercised a widespread
influence over the progress of zoological science, the _Règne Animal_ of
Cuvier, he forms a distinct order under the name of Bimana, the Monkeys
and Lemurs being associated together as Quadrumana. This has been the
prevailing arrangement in the zoological systems of the present century,
though in the classification of Owen his position is still farther
removed from that of the Monkeys, as in it the genus _Homo_ forms one
of the four primary divisions or subclasses of the Mammalia, called
Archencephala, the Quadrumana being united with the Carnivora, Ungulata,
and others in another division called Gyrencephala. On the other hand,
the tendency of most modern systematists, for reasons which have been
fully stated by Professor Huxley,[700] is to revert towards the Linnæan
position.
Considering solely the facts of Man’s bodily structure, it can be
clearly demonstrated that the points in which he differs from the Ape
most nearly resembling him are not of greater importance than those by
which that Ape differs from other universally acknowledged members of
the group; and therefore, in any natural system, if Man is to be made a
subject of zoological classification upon the same principles as those
applied elsewhere, he must be included in the order which comprises
the Monkeys. We say upon the same principles as are applied elsewhere,
since zoological classification has never taken into consideration
the psychological characteristics which distinguish the subjects of
its investigations, but only their tangible and physical structure,
otherwise endless confusion would result, at all events with our very
imperfect knowledge of animal psychology. The essential attributes which
distinguish Man, and give him a perfectly isolated position among living
creatures, are not to be found in his bodily structure, and should
therefore either be left entirely out of consideration, or have such
weight given to them as would remove him completely out of the region
of zoological classification. To profess to classify Man as if he were
one of the animals (as in all points of the structure and functions of
his organs he undoubtedly is), to place him in the class Mammalia, and
then to allow other considerations to influence the judgment as to the
particular position he should occupy in the class, is most illogical.
Man, therefore, considered from a zoological point of view, must be
included in the order Primates, even if the Lemurs be removed from it,
since his structural affinities with the Monkeys are far closer than
are those of the so-called “Half-Apes.” We may, without treading upon
debatable ground, go farther, and say that the differences between Man
and the Anthropoid Apes are really not so marked as those which separate
the latter from the American Monkeys. This being admitted, perhaps the
best exposition relating to the present condition of the order will be
to regard Man as representing a fifth family of the Anthropoidea, which
should be known as the _Hominidæ_. In thus ranking Man as one of the five
principal families or sections of the suborder it should, however, be
observed that this course does not in the least degree imply that such
families are precisely equivalent to one another, or that the intervals
by which they are separated are of equal importance; all that we commit
ourselves to being that they are five perfectly distinct groups, all
branches from a common stem, and in the present state of nature not
united by any intermediate types.
The distinctions between the _Hominidæ_ and _Simiidæ_ are chiefly
relative, being greater size of brain and of brain-case as compared
with the facial portion of the skull, smaller development of the
canine teeth of the males, complete adaptation of the structure of the
vertebral column to the vertical position, greater length of the lower
as compared with the upper extremities, and greater length of the hallux
or great toe, with almost complete absence of the power of bringing it
in opposition to the other four toes. The last feature together with the
small size of the canine teeth are perhaps the most marked and easily
defined distinctions that can be drawn between the two groups.
Man is universally admitted to form a single genus, _Homo_ of Linnæus,
but a question of considerable importance in treating of him from a
zoological point of view, and one which has been a subject of much
controversy, is whether all men should be considered as belonging to a
single or to several species. This question is perhaps of less importance
now than formerly, when those who maintained a plurality of species
associated with the hypothesis plurality of origin. One of the strongest
arguments against the view that the various races of Man represent more
than one species is that none of those who have maintained it have been
able to agree as to how many distinct specific modifications can be
defined, almost every number from three to twenty or more having been
advocated by different authors. If the distinguishing characters of
the so-called species had been so marked, there could not be such a
remarkable diversity of opinion upon them. Again, the two facts—(1) that,
however different the extremes of any two races may be in appearance
(and it must be admitted that, as advocated by many polygenists, the
differences are greater than many which are considered specific among
other animals), every intermediate gradation can be found through which
the one passes into the other, and (2) that all races are fertile _inter
se_—are quite conclusive in favour of considering Man as representing a
single species in the ordinary sense in which the word is now used, and
of treating of all his various modifications as varieties or races.
The great problem at the root of all zoology, the discovery of a natural
classification which shall be an expression of our knowledge of the real
relationship or consanguinity of different forms, is also applicable to
the study of the races of Man. When we can satisfactorily prove that any
two of the known groups of mankind are descended from the same common
stock, a point is gained. The more such points we have acquired the more
nearly shall we be able to picture to ourselves, not only the present,
but also the past distribution of the races of Man upon the earth, and
the mode and order in which they have been derived from one another.
But the difficulties in the way of applying zoological principles to
the classification of Man are vastly greater than in the case of most
animals. When groups of animals become so far differentiated from each
other as to represent separate species, they remain isolated; they
may break up into further subdivisions—in fact, it is only by further
subdivision that new species can be formed; but it is of the very essence
of species, as now universally understood by naturalists, that they
cannot recombine, and so give rise to new forms. With the varieties of
Man it is otherwise. They have never so far separated as to answer to
the physiological definition of species. All races, as said above, are
fertile with one another, though perhaps in different degrees. Hence new
varieties have constantly been formed, not only by the segmentation of
portions of one of the old stocks, but also by various combinations of
those already established.
Without entering into the difficult question of the method of Man’s first
appearance upon the world, we must assume for it vast antiquity,—at all
events as measured by any historical standard. Of this there is now
ample proof. During the long time Man existed in a savage state—a time
compared to which the dawn of our historical period is as yesterday—he
was influenced by the operation of those natural laws which have
produced the variations seen in other regions of organic nature. The
first Men may very probably have been all alike; but when spread over
the face of the earth and subjected to all kinds of diverse external
conditions,—climate, food, competition with members of their own
species or with wild animals,—racial differences began slowly to be
developed through the potency of various kinds of selection acting upon
the slight variations which appeared in individuals in obedience to the
tendency planted in all living things. These differences manifested
themselves externally in the colour of the skin, the colour, quality,
and distribution of the hair, the form of the head and features, and the
proportions of the limbs, as well as in the general stature.
Geographical position must have been one of the main elements in
determining the formation and permanence of races. Groups of Men isolated
from their fellows for long periods, such as those living on small
islands, to which their ancestors may have been accidentally drifted,
would naturally, in course of time, develop a new type of features, of
skull, of complexion, or hair. A slight set in one direction in any of
these characters would constantly tend to intensify itself, and so new
races would be formed. In the same way different intellectual or moral
qualities would be gradually developed or transmitted in different groups
of Men. The longer a race thus formed remained isolated the more strongly
impressed and the more permanent would its characteristics become, and
less liable to be changed or lost when the surrounding circumstances
were altered or under a moderate amount of intermixture from other
races—the more “true,” in fact, would it be. On the other hand, on large
continental tracts, where no mountain ranges or other natural barriers
form obstacles to free intercourse between tribe and tribe, there would
always be a tendency towards uniformity, from the amalgamation of races
brought into close relation by war or by commerce. Smaller or feebler
races would be destroyed or absorbed by others impelled by superabundant
population or other causes to spread beyond their original limits; or
sometimes the conquering race would itself disappear by absorption into
the conquered.
Thus for untold ages the history of Man has presented a shifting
kaleidoscopic scene: new races gradually becoming differentiated out of
the old elements, and, after dwelling a while upon the earth, becoming
either suddenly annihilated or gradually merged into new combinations;
a constant destruction and reconstruction; a constant tendency to
separation and differentiation, and a tendency to combine again into
a common uniformity—the two tendencies acting against and modifying
each other. The history of these processes in former times, except in
so far as they may be inferred from the present state of things, is
a difficult study, owing to the scarcity of evidence. If we had any
approach to a complete palæontological record, the history of Man could
be reconstructed; but nothing of the kind is forthcoming. Evidence of
the anatomical characters of Man as he lived on the earth during the
time when the most striking racial characteristics were being developed,
during the long ante-historic period in which the Negro, the Mongolian,
and the Caucasian were being gradually fashioned into their respective
types, is entirely wanting, or if any exists it is at present safely
buried in the earth, perhaps to be revealed at some unexpected time and
in some unforeseen manner. Even the materials from which a history of
the modifications of the human species as known to our generation must
be constructed are rapidly passing away, since the age in which we live
is an age in which, in a far greater degree than any previous one, the
destruction of races, both by annihilation and absorption, is going
on. Owing to the rapid extension of maritime discovery and commerce,
changes such as have never been witnessed before are now taking place
in the ethnology of the world—changes especially affecting the island
populations among which, more than elsewhere, the solution of many of
those problems may be looked for. The subject is, however, attracting the
attention of observers of all countries to a greater degree than it ever
has before, and such progress has been made in perfecting the methods of
investigation of racial characteristics that we are beginning to learn
what lines of research are profitable and what are barren, so that we
may hope the time is not far distant when we may get some clear insight
into the knowledge of the natural classification and relationships of the
races of Man.
The following is a brief summary of the principal results which appear to
have been attained up to the present time by the study of this somewhat
difficult subject.[701]
The most ordinary observation is sufficient to demonstrate the fact
that certain groups of men are strongly marked from others by definite
characters common to all members of the group, and transmitted regularly
to their descendants by the laws of inheritance. Thus the Chinaman
and the Negro, the native of Patagonia and the Andaman Islander, are
as structurally distinct from each other as are many of the so-called
species of any natural group of animals. Indeed, it may be said with
truth that their differences are even greater than those which mark the
groups called genera by many naturalists of the present day. Nevertheless
the difficulty of parcelling out all the individuals composing the
human species into certain definite groups, and of saying of each man
that he belongs to one or other of such groups, is insuperable. No such
classification has ever been, or, indeed, can ever be obtained. There
is not one of the most characteristic and most extreme forms, like
those just named, from which transitions cannot be traced by almost
imperceptible gradations to any of the other equally characteristic
and equally extreme forms. Indeed, a large proportion of mankind is
made up, not of extreme or typical, but of more or less generalised
or intermediate forms, the relative numbers of which are continually
increasing, as the long-existing isolation of nations and races breaks
down under the ever-extending intercommunication characteristic of the
period in which we live.
The difficulties of framing a natural classification of Man, or one
really representing the relationship of the various minor groups to each
other, are well exemplified by a study of the numerous attempts which
have been made from the time of Linnæus and Blumenbach onwards. Even in
the first step of establishing certain primary groups of equivalent rank
there has been no accord. Thus four primitive types were sketched out by
Linnæus—the European, Asiatic, African, and American. These were expanded
into five by Blumenbach by the addition of the Malay,[702] and reduced by
Cuvier to three by the suppression of the last two. Many later writers
have largely increased the number of these so-called primary divisions,
but the conclusion, so often arrived at by various anthropologists, and
so often abandoned for some more complex system, that the primitive
man, whatever he may have been, has in the course of ages divaricated
into three extreme types, represented by the Caucasian of Europe, the
Mongolian of Asia, and the Ethiopian of Africa, and that all existing
individuals of the species can be ranged around these types, or somewhere
or other between them, seems, on the whole, to give the clearest view
of the facts of the case. Large numbers are doubtless the descendants
of direct crosses in varying proportions between well-established
extreme forms; for, notwithstanding opposite views formerly held by some
authors on this subject, there is now abundant evidence of the wholesale
production of new races in this way. Others may be the descendants of
the primitive stock before the strongly marked existing distinctions had
taken place, and therefore present, though from a different cause from
the last, equally generalised characters. In these cases it can only be
by most carefully examining and balancing all characters, however minute,
and finding out in what direction the preponderance lies, that a place
can be assigned to them. It cannot be too often insisted on that the
various groups of mankind, owing to their probable unity of origin, the
great variability of individuals, and the possibility of all degrees of
intermixture of races at remote or recent periods of the history of the
species, have so much in common that it is extremely difficult to find
distinctive characters capable of strict definition by which they may be
differentiated. It is more by the preponderance of certain characters
in a large number of members of a group, than by the exclusive or even
constant possession of these characters in each of its members, that the
group as a whole must be characterised.
Bearing these principles in mind, we may endeavour to formulate, as far
as they have as yet been worked out, the distinctive features of the
typical members of each of the three great divisions, and then show into
what subordinate groups each of them seems to be divided.
We begin with the Ethiopian, Negroid, or Melanian, or “black” type. It
is characterised by a dark, often nearly black, complexion; black hair,
of a kind called “frizzly” or, incorrectly, “woolly,” _i.e._ each hair
is closely rolled up on itself, a condition always associated with a
more or less flattened or elliptical transverse section; a moderate
or scanty development of beard, an almost invariably dolichocephalic
skull; small and moderately retreating jugal bones (mesopic face); a
very broad and flat nose, platyrhine in the skeleton; moderate or low
orbits; prominent eyes; thick, everted lips; prognathous jaws; large
teeth (macrodont); a narrow pelvis (index in the male 90 to 100); a
long forearm (humero-radial index 80); and certain other proportions of
the body and limbs which are being gradually worked out, and reduced to
numerical expression as material for so doing accumulates.
The most characteristic examples of the second great type, the Mongolian
or Xanthous, or “yellow,” have a yellow or brownish complexion; black
coarse straight hair, without any tendency to curl, and nearly round
in section; on all other parts of the surface except the scalp scanty
and late in appearing; a skull of variable form, mostly mesocephalic
(though extremes both of dolichocephalism and brachycephalism are found
in certain groups of this type); a broad and flat face, with prominent,
anteriorly-projecting jugal bones (platyopic face); nose small, mesorhine
or leptorhine; orbits high and round, with very little development of
glabella or supraciliary ridges; eyes sunken, and with the aperture
between the lids narrow; in the most typical members of the group with a
vertical fold of skin over the inner canthus, and with the outer angle
slightly elevated; jaws mesognathous; teeth of moderate size (mesodont).
The proportions of the limbs and form of the pelvis have yet to be worked
out, the results at present obtained showing great diversity among
different individuals of what appear to be well-marked races of the
group, but this is perhaps due to the insufficient number of individuals
as yet examined with accuracy.
The last type, which, for want of a better name, we must still call by
the misleading one that has the priority, Caucasian, or “white,” has
usually a light-complexioned skin (although in some, in so far aberrant
cases, it is as dark as in the Negroes); hair fair or black, soft,
straight, or wavy, in section intermediate between the flattened and
cylindrical form; beard fully developed; form of cranium variable, mostly
mesocephalic; jugal bones retreating; face narrow and projecting in
the middle line (pro-opic); orbits moderate; nose narrow and prominent
(leptorhine); jaws orthognathous; teeth small (microdont); pelvis
broad (pelvic index of male 80); forearm short, relatively to humerus
(humero-radial index 74).
In endeavouring to subdivide into minor groups the numerous and
variously-modified individuals which cluster around one or other of
these great types—a process quite necessary for many practical or
descriptive purposes—the distinctions afforded by the study of physical
characters are often so slight that it becomes necessary to take other
considerations into account, among which geographical distribution and
language hold an important place.
I. The Ethiopian or Negroid races may be primarily arranged as follows:—
A. African or Typical Negroes.—Inhabitants of all the central portion
of the African continent, from the Atlantic on the west to the Indian
Ocean on the east, greatly mixed all along their northern frontier with
Hamitic and Semitic Melanochroi, a mixture which, taking place in various
proportions and under varied conditions, has given rise to many of the
numerous races and tribes inhabiting the Sudan.
A branch of the African Negroes are the Bantu—distinguished chiefly,
if not entirely, by the structure of their language. Physically
indistinguishable from the other negroes with whom they come in contact
in the Equatorial regions of Africa, the Southern Bantu, or Kaffirs,
as they are generally called, show a marked modification of type,
being lighter in colour, having a larger cranial capacity, less marked
prognathism, and smaller teeth. Some of these changes are probably due to
crossing with other races.
B. The Negrillos—diminutive sub-brachycephalic tribes, inhabiting the
dense forests of Central and Western Equatorial Africa—represent a
distinct section of the Negro race. They form the only exceptions to the
general dolichocephaly of the African branch of the Negroid division, and
when found in a pure state are the smallest of all known human races,
averaging scarcely more than 4 feet in height. The colour of their skin
is yellowish rather than black.
C. The Bushmen (Bosjesmen, men of the woods, of the Dutch colonists of
South Africa) constitute a very distinct modification of the Negro type.
The hair shows the extreme of the frizzly character; being shorter and
less abundant than that of the ordinary Negro, it has the appearance of
growing in separate tufts, which coil up together into rounded balls
compared to “peppercorns.” In their yellow complexion, wide cheek-bones,
and peculiar form of the eyes they so much resemble some of the Mongolian
races that anthropologists have been inclined to trace affinities to
or admixture with them, although the character of the hair makes such
a supposition almost inadmissible. The width of the cheek-bones and
the narrowness of the forehead and chin give a lozenge shape to the
front view of the face. The forehead is prominent and straight; the
nose extremely flat and broad, more so than in any other race; the lips
prominent and thick, although the jaws are less prognathous than in the
true Negro races. The cranium has many special characters by which it
can be easily distinguished from that of any other race. The average
height of the males is about 4 feet 8 inches. There is every reason to
believe that the Bushmen represent the earliest race of which we have
any knowledge inhabiting the southern part of the African continent, but
that long before the advent of Europeans upon the scene they had been
invaded from the north by Negro tribes, who, being superior in size,
strength, and civilisation, had taken possession of the greater part of
their territories, and, mingling freely with the aborigines, had produced
the mixed race called Hottentots, who retained the culture and settled
pastoral habits of the Negroes, with many of the physical features of the
Bushmen. These in their turn, encroached upon by the Kaffirs from the
north and by Europeans from the south, are now greatly diminished, and
threatened with the same fate which will surely soon befall the scanty
remnant of the early inhabitants who still retain their primitive type.
D. Oceanic Negroes or Melanesians.—These include the Papuans of New
Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of the Western
Pacific, and form also a substratum of the population, greatly mixed with
other races, of regions extending far beyond the present centre of their
area of distribution.
They are represented, in what may be called a hypertypical form, by the
extremely dolichocephalic Kai Colos, or mountaineers of the interior of
the Fiji Islands, although the coast population of the same group has
lost the distinctive characters by crossing. In many parts of New Guinea
and the great chain of islands extending eastwards and southwards ending
with New Caledonia they are found in a more or less pure condition,
especially in the interior and more inaccessible portions of the islands,
almost each of which shows special modifications of the type recognisable
in details of structure. Taken altogether, their chief physical
distinction from the African Negroes lies in the fact that the glabella
and supraorbital ridges are generally well developed in the males,
whereas in Africans this region is usually smooth and flat. The nose
also, especially in the northern part of their geographical range, New
Guinea, and the neighbouring islands, is narrower (often mesorhine) and
prominent. The cranium is generally higher and narrower. It is, however,
possible to find African and Melanesian skulls quite alike in essential
characters.
The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania were probably pure, but aberrant,
members of the Melanesian group, which had undergone a modification from
the original type, not by mixture with other races, but in consequence
of long isolation, during which special characters had been gradually
developed. Lying completely out of the track of all civilisation and
commerce, even of the most primitive kind, they were little liable to
be subject to the influence of any other race; and there is in fact
nothing among their characters which could be accounted for in the way
above suggested, as they were intensely, even exaggeratedly, Negroid in
the form of nose, projection of mouth, and size of teeth, typically so
in character of hair, and aberrant chiefly in the width of the skull in
the parietal region. A cross with any of the Polynesian or Malay races
sufficiently strong to produce this would, in all probability, have also
left some traces on other parts of their organisation.
On the other hand, in many parts of the Melanesian region there
are distinct evidences of large admixture with Negrito, Malay, and
Polynesian elements in varying proportions, producing numerous physical
modifications. In many of the inhabitants of the great island of New
Guinea itself and of the islands lying around it this mixture can be
traced. In the people of Micronesia in the north and New Zealand in the
south, although the Melanesian element is present, it is completely
overlaid by the Polynesian, but there are probably few, if any, of the
islands of the Pacific in which it does not form some factor in the
composite character of the natives.
The inhabitants of the continent of Australia have long been a puzzle to
ethnologists. Of Negroid complexion, features, and skeletal characters,
yet without the characteristic frizzly hair, their position has been
one of great difficulty to determine. They have, in fact, been a
stumbling-block in the way of every system proposed. The solution,
supported by many considerations too lengthy to enter into here, appears
to lie in the supposition that they are not a distinct race at all, that
is, not a homogeneous group formed by the gradual modification of one
of the primitive stocks, but rather a cross between two already-formed
branches of these stocks. According to this view, Australia was
originally peopled with frizzly-haired Melanesians, such as those who
still do, or did before the European invasion, dwell in the smaller
islands which surround the north, east, and southern portions of the
continent, but that a strong infusion of some other race, probably a
low form of Caucasian Melanochroi, such as that which still inhabits
the interior of the southern parts of India, has spread throughout the
land from the north-west, and produced a modification of the physical
characters, especially of the hair. This influence did not extend across
Bass’s Straits into Tasmania, where, as just said, the Melanesian element
remained in its purity. It is more strongly marked in the northern
and central parts of Australia than on many portions of the southern
and western coasts, where the lowness of type and more curly hair,
sometimes closely approaching to frizzly, show a stronger retention
of the Melanesian element. If the evidence should prove sufficiently
strong to establish this view of the origin of the Australian natives,
it will no longer be correct to speak of a primitive Australian, or even
Australoid, race or type, or look for traces of the former existence of
such a race anywhere out of their own land. Absolute proof of the origin
of any race is, however, very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain,
and there is nothing to exclude the possibility of the Australians being
mainly the direct descendants of a very primitive human type, from which
the frizzly-haired Negroes may be an offset. This character of hair is
probably a specialisation, for it seems very unlikely that it was the
attribute of the common ancestors of the human race.
E. The fourth branch of the Negroid race consists of the diminutive
round-headed people called Negritos, still found in a pure or unmixed
state in the Andaman Islands, and forming a substratum of the population,
though now greatly mixed with invading races, especially Malays, in the
Philippines, and many of the islands of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago,
and of some parts of the southern portion of the mainland of Asia. They
also contribute to the varied population of New Guinea, where they appear
to merge into the taller, longer-headed, and longer-nosed Melanesians
proper. They show in a very marked manner some of the most striking
anatomical peculiarities of the Negro race, such as the frizzly hair,
the proportions of the limbs, especially the humero-radial index, and
the form of the pelvis; but they differ in many cranial and facial
characters, both from the African Negroes on the one hand, and the
typical Oceanic Negroes, or Melanesians, on the other, and thus form a
very distinct and well-characterised group. Wherever they are still found
they are obviously holding their own with difficulty, if not actually
disappearing, and there is much about their condition of civilisation and
the situations in which they occur to induce us to look upon them, as in
the case of the Negrillos of Central and the Bushmen of South Africa, as
the remains of a population which occupied the land before the incoming
of the present dominant races.
II. The principal groups that can be arranged round the Mongolian type
are as follows:—
A. The Eskimo appear to be a branch of the typical North Asiatic Mongols,
who in their wanderings northwards and eastwards across the American
continent, where they have been isolated almost as perfectly as an island
population would be, hemmed in on one side by the eternal Polar ice,
and on the other by hostile tribes of American Indians, with which they
rarely, if ever, mingled, have gradually developed characters, most of
which are strongly-expressed modifications of those seen in their allies
who still remain on the western side of Behring Strait. It has also been
shown that these special characteristics gradually increase from west to
east, and are seen in their greatest perfection in the inhabitants of
Greenland, at all events in those where no crossing with the Danes has
taken place. A typical Eskimo skull presents a combination of characters
by which it can be at once distinguished from that of any other of the
groups of mankind. Such scanty remains as have yet been discovered of the
earliest inhabitants of Europe do not present any structural affinities
to this type, and there is therefore no justification for the supposition
that they belonged to the same race, although it is not unlikely that
similar external conditions may have led them to adopt similar modes of
life.
B. The typical Mongolian races constitute the present population of
Northern and Central Asia. They are not very distinctly, but still
conveniently for descriptive purposes, divided into a Northern and a
Southern group.
_a._ The members of the former, Mongolo-Altaic or Sibiric group, are
united by the affinities of their language. These people, from the cradle
of their race in the great plateau of Central Asia, have at various
times poured out their hordes upon the lands lying to the west, and
thence penetrated almost to the heart of Europe. The Lapps, Finns, the
Magyars, and the Turks are each the descendants of one of these waves of
incursion, but they have for so many generations intermingled with the
peoples through whom they have passed in their migrations, or whom they
have found in the countries in which they have ultimately settled, that
their original physical characters have been completely modified. Even
the Lapps, that diminutive tribe of nomads inhabiting the most northern
parts of Europe, supposed to be of Mongolian descent, show so little of
the special attributes of that branch that it is difficult to assign them
a place in it in a classification based upon physical characters. The
Japanese are said by their language to be allied rather to the Northern
than to the following branch of the Mongolian stock.
_b._ The southern Mongolian or Sinitic group, divided from the former
chiefly by language and habits of life, includes the greater part of the
population of China, Tibet, Burma, and Siam.
C. The next great division of Mongoloid people is the Malay, forming the
bulk of the population of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago and (mixed with
the Negro) of Madagascar, subtypical it is true, but to which an easy
transition can be traced from the most characteristic members of the type.
D. The brown Polynesians, Malayo-Polynesians, Mahoris, Sawaioris, or
Kanakas, as they have been variously called, seen in their greatest
purity in the Samoan, Tongan, and Eastern Polynesian Islands, are still
more modified, and possess less of the characteristic Mongolian features;
but yet it is difficult to place them anywhere else in the system. The
large infusion of the Melanesian element throughout the Pacific must
never be forgotten in accounting for the characters of the people now
inhabiting the islands—an element in many respects so diametrically
opposite to the Mongolian that it would materially alter the characters,
especially of the hair and beard, which has been with many authors a
stumbling-block to the affiliation of the Polynesian with the Mongolian
stock. This mixture is physically a fine one, and in some proportions
produces a combination, as seen, for instance, in the Maories of New
Zealand, which in all definable characters approaches quite as near, or
nearer, to the Caucasian type than to either of the stocks from which it
may be presumably derived. This resemblance has led some ethnologists
to infer a real extension of the Caucasian element at some very early
period into the Pacific Islands, and to look upon their inhabitants as
the product of a mingling of all the three great types of men. Though
this is a very plausible theory, it rests on little actual proof,
since the combination of Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian characters in
different degrees, together with the local variations certain to arise
in communities so isolated from each other and exposed to such varied
conditions as the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, would probably
account for all the modifications observed among them.
E. The native population (before the changes wrought by the European
conquest) of the great continent of America, excluding the Eskimo,
present, considering the vast extent of the country they inhabit and
the great differences of climate and other surrounding conditions, a
remarkable similarity of essential characters with much diversity of
detail.
The construction of the numerous American languages, of which as many
as twelve hundred have been distinguished, is said to point to unity of
origin, as, though widely different in many respects, they are all, or
nearly all, constructed on the same general grammatical principle—that
called _polysynthesis_—which differs from that of the languages of any
of the Old World nations. The mental characteristics of all the American
tribes have much that is in common, and the very different stages of
culture to which they had attained at the time of the conquest, as that
of the Incas and Aztecs and the hunting or fishing tribes of the north
and south, which have been quoted as evidence of diversities of race,
were not greater than those between different nations of Europe, as
Gauls and Germans on the one hand, and Greeks and Romans on the other,
in the time of Julius Cæsar. Yet all these were Aryans, and in treating
the Americans as one race it is not intended to imply that they are more
closely allied than the different Aryan peoples of Europe and Asia. The
best argument that can be used for the unity of the American race—using
the word in a broad sense—is the great difficulty of forming any natural
divisions in it founded upon physical characters. Thus there is no
difference throughout the whole continent in the important character of
the hair, this being always straight and lank, long and abundant on the
scalp, but sparse elsewhere. The colour of the skin, notwithstanding the
enormous differences of climate under which many members of the group
exist, varies but little. It is true that in the features and cranium
certain special modifications prevail in different districts, but the
same forms reappear at widely separated parts of the continent. Thus
skulls almost undistinguishable from one another may be met with from
Vancouver’s Island, from Peru, and from Patagonia.
Naturalists who have admitted but three primary types of the human
species have always found a difficulty with the Americans, hesitating
between placing them with the Mongolian or so-called “yellow” races, or
elevating them to the rank of a primary group. Cuvier, indeed, does not
seem to have been able to settle this point to his own satisfaction, and
leaves it an open question. Although the large majority of Americans have
in the special form of the nasal bones, leading to the characteristic
high bridge of the nose of the living face, in the well-developed
superciliary ridge and retreating forehead, characters which distinguish
them from the typical Asiatic Mongol, yet in many other respects they
resemble them so closely that, while still admitting the difficulties
of the case, we are inclined to include them as aberrant members of the
Mongolian type.[703] It is, however, quite open to any one adopting the
Negro, Mongolian, and Caucasian groups as primary divisions to place the
Americans apart as a fourth.
Now that the high antiquity of man in America—perhaps as high as that
which he has in Europe—has been discovered, the puzzling problem, from
which part of the Old World the people of America have sprung, has lost
its significance. It is, indeed, quite as likely that the people of Asia
may have been derived from America as the reverse. However this may be,
the population of America, except at the extreme north, was, before the
time of Columbus, practically isolated from the rest of the world.
Such visits as those of the early Norsemen to the coasts of Greenland,
Labrador, and Nova Scotia, or the occasional accidental stranding of
a canoe containing survivors of a voyage across the Pacific or the
Atlantic, can have had little appreciable effect upon the characteristics
of the people. It is difficult, therefore, to look upon the anomalous and
special characters of the American people as the effects of crossing, as
was suggested in the case of the Australians—a consideration which gives
more weight to the view of treating them as a distinct primary division.
III. The Caucasian, Eurafrican, or white division, includes the two
groups called by Professor Huxley Xanthochroi and Melanochroi, which,
though differing in colour of eyes and hair, agree so closely in all
other anatomical characters, so far, at all events, as has at present
been demonstrated, that it seems preferable to consider them both as
modifications of one great type than as primary divisions of the species.
Whatever their origin may have been, they are now intimately blended,
though in different proportions, throughout the whole of the region of
the earth they inhabit; and it is to the rapid extension of both branches
of this race that the great changes now taking place in the ethnology of
the world are mainly due.
A. The Xanthochroi, or blonde type, with fair hair, eyes, and complexion,
chiefly inhabit Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Scotland, and North
Germany), but, although much mixed with the next group, they also extend
as far as Northern Africa and Afghanistan. Their mixture with Mongoloid
people has given rise to the Lapps, Finns, and some of the tribes of
Northern Siberia.
B. Melanochroi, with black hair and eyes, and skin of almost all shades
from white to black. They comprise the great majority of the inhabitants
of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and South-West Asia, and consist
mainly of the Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic families. The Dravidians of
India, the Veddahs of Ceylon, and probably the Ainos of Japan, and the
Maoutze of China, also belong to this race, which may have contributed
something to the mixed character of some tribes of Indo-China and
the Polynesian Islands, and, as before said, have given at least the
characters of the hair to the otherwise Negroid inhabitants of Australia.
In Southern India they are largely mixed with a Negrito element, and in
Africa, where their habitat becomes coterminous with that of the Negroes,
numerous cross-races have sprung up between them all along the frontier
line. The ancient Egyptians were nearly pure Melanochroi, though often
showing in their features traces of their frequent intermarriages with
their Ethiopian neighbours to the south. The Copts and fellahs of modern
Egypt are their little-changed descendants.
In offering this scheme of classification of the varieties of the human
species, it is not suggested that it is one universally accepted by
anthropologists, or that it is likely to be final. Whatever care be
bestowed upon the arrangement of already acquired details, or whatever
judgment be shown in their due subordination one to another, the
acquisition of new knowledge may at any time call for a complete or
partial rearrangement of the system. The difficulties which encompass
the subject have, indeed, been already indicated, and will be found
abundantly illustrated in the writings of those authors who have
specially devoted themselves to its elucidation.
_Bibliography._—P. Topinard, _Éléments d’Anthropologie
Générale_, 1885; A. de Quatrefages, _Histoire Générale
des Races Humaines_ (1. _Questions Générales_, 1887; 2.
_Classification des Races Humaines_, 1889); Quatrefages and
Hamy, _Crania Ethnica_ (1873-1879); D. G. Brinton, _Races and
Peoples_, 1890.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Galton’s _South Africa_, p. 187.
[2] L. F. E. Rousseau, _Anatomie comparée du Système dentaire chez
l’Homme et chez les principaux Animaux_, 2d ed., 1839; F. Cuvier, _Des
Dents des Mammifères considérées comme caractères zoologiques_, 1822-25;
R. Owen, _Odontography_, 1840-45; C. G. Giebel, _Odontographie_, 1855; C.
S. Tomes, _Manual of Dental Anatomy, Human and Comparative_, 3d ed., 1889.
[3] The lower incisors of some species of Shrews are, however, said to
become ankylosed to the jaw in adult age.
[4] The teeth of the extinct Dinosaurian reptile _Triceratops_ have two
distinct roots, placed transversely to the axis of the jaws.
[5] This and other questions concerning the homologies, notation, and
succession of the teeth of mammals are more fully developed in two
memoirs by one of the present writers:—“Remarks on the Homologies and
Notation of the Teeth of the Mammalia,” in the _Journal of Anatomy and
Physiology_, vol. iii. p. 262, 1869; and “Notes on the First or Milk
Dentition of the Mammalia,” in the _Trans. Odontological Society of Great
Britain_, 1871. See also an important memoir by Oldfield Thomas on the
“Homologies and Succession of the teeth in the Dasyuridæ,” _Phil. Trans._
1887, pp. 443-462.
[6] By many writers the letters indicating the different kinds of teeth
are printed in capitals, as _I_, _C_, _P_, and _M_; while very frequently
the symbol _Pm_ is employed in place of _p_.
[7] According to Mr. G. E. Dobson there are four upper incisors in some
of the _Soricidæ_.
[8] See for the principal modifications of the skeleton of the class,
the large and beautifully illustrated _Ostéographie_ of De Blainville,
1835-54; the section devoted to the subject in Bronn’s _Klassen und
Ordnungen des Thier-Reichs_, by Giebel, 1874-79; and _An Introduction to
the Osteology of the Mammalia_, by W. H. Flower, 3d ed., 1885.
[9] This and many of the following figures in this chapter are taken from
Flower’s _Osteology of the Mammalia_.
[10] For the sake of uniformity, in all the following descriptions of
the vertebral column, the long axis of the body is supposed to be in the
horizontal position.
[11] The opinion has recently been expressed by Baur that bone termed
radiale in Fig. 17 is really a second centrale, and that the radiale is
represented by a minute bone generally known as the radial sesamoid. The
mammalian scaphoid is accordingly also regarded as a second centrale. In
the same communication, Dr. Baur expresses his disbelief in the existence
of remnants of a prepollex and of a seventh digit in mammals and other
vertebrates. (See _Anat. Anzeiger_, vol. iv. pp. 49-52, 1889.)
[12] On the Præpollex and Præhallux, etc., _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1889, pp.
259-262.
[13] Cope and Baur consider that the astragalus corresponds only with the
intermedium, and that the tibiale may exist as a distinct element.
[14] For further details of these modifications, see Flower’s “Lectures
on the Comparative Anatomy of the Organs of Digestion of the Mammalia,”
_Medical Times and Gazette_, Feb.-Dec. 1872.
[15] G. Gulliver, _Proc. Zool. Soc._, 1862, p. 91.
[16] The modifications of these bones are fully described by A. Doran,
“Morphology of the Mammalian _Ossicula auditus_,” _Trans. Linn. Soc._
ser. 2, vol. i. pp. 371-497, pl. lviii.-lxiv. (1878).
[17] See B. H. Caldwell—“The Embryology of Monotremata and Marsupialia,”
_Phil. Trans._ for 1887, p. 463.
[18] _Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia_, 1881, p. 468.
[19] “_Studien ueber Entwickelungeschichte der Thiere_,” pt. 4,
Wiesbaden, 1886.
[20] _Journal of Morphology_, vol. i. p. 373 (1887).
[21] For a full exposition of the present state of knowledge on this
subject, see the various memoirs of Sir William Turner, also F. M.
Balfour’s _Treatise on Comparative Embryology_, vol. ii. (1881), and J.
A. Ryder in _American Naturalist_, vol. xxi. p. 780 (1887).
[22] _Proceedings of the Royal Society of London_, vol. xxviii. p. 395
(1879).
[23] “The Relations between the Theromorphous Reptiles and the Monotreme
Mammalia,” _Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science_, vol. xxxiii. p. 471 (1885).
[24] “On the Phylogenetic Arrangement of the Sauropsida,” _Journal of
Morphology_, vol. i. pp. 93-104 (1887).
[25] The names of the groups containing only extinct forms are printed in
heavier type than those which contain species still existing.
[26] On this subject see A. Murray, _Geographical Distribution of
Mammals_, 1866; and especially A. R. Wallace, _The Geographical
Distribution of Animals_, 2 vols., 1876, and _Island Life_, 1881; also A.
Heilprin, _The Geographical and Geological Distribution of Animals_, 1887.
[27] _Distribution of Animals._
[28] Generally known, as _Hyomoschus_, but first described as an extinct
form under the above name.
[29] The fore limb from S. Africa described as _Theriodesmus_, which
appears to be mammalian, and may belong to _Tritylodon_.
[30] The subjects referred to under this heading are mostly described
and figured in detail in Owen’s “Monograph of the Fossil Mammalia of the
Mesozoic Formations,” _Palæontographical Society’s Publications_, 1871;
and in various papers by Marsh, in the _American Journal of Science and
Arts_, 1878-89. Important contributions to our knowledge of these forms
have also been made by Professors Cope and Osborn, and the reader should
especially consult the memoir by the latter writer on the “Structure and
Affinities of the Mesozoic Mammals,” published in the _Journal of the
Philadelphia Academy_ (1888), vol. ix.
[31] The whole discussion is contained in the following memoirs: (1)
H. Falconer, “Description of Two Species of the Fossil Mammalian genus
_Plagiaulax_, from Purbeck,” _Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._ vol. xiv.
1857; (2) R. Owen, art. “Palæontology,” _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 8th
ed., 1859; (3) H. Falconer, “On the Disputed affinity of the Mammalian
genus _Plagiaulax_,” _Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._ vol. xviii. 1862; (4)
R. Owen, “Monograph of the Fossil Mammalia of the Mesozoic Formation,”
_Palæontographical Society_, 1871.
[32] Blumenbach, _Voigts Magazin_, vol. ii. p. 205 (1800).
[33] _Proceedings of the Royal Society of London_, vol. xliii. p. 353
(1888).
[34] _Ibid._ vol. xlvi. p. 126 (1889).
[35] Cuvier, _Tableau Élémentaire d’Hist. Nat._ p. 143 (1798).
[36] Gervais, _Ostéographie des Monotremes_, p. 43 (1877).
[37] For the detailed characters of all the genera and species of
Marsupials the reader should consult the British Museum _Catalogue of
Marsupialia and Monotremata_, by Oldfield Thomas, 1888.
[38] Except in _Petaurus (Belideus) breviceps_ (Forbes, _Proc. Zool.
Soc._ 1881, p. 188).
[39] Including the transitional Austro-Malayan region.
[40] Illiger, _Prod. Syst. Mamm. et Aves_, p. 76 (1811).
[41] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ Ed. 12, vol. i. p. 71 (1766).
[42] Temminck, _Monographies de Mammalogie_, vol. i. p. 60 (1827).
[43] F. Cuvier, _Hist. Nat. des Mammifères_, iv. (1837).
[44] Geoffroy, _Bull. Soc. Philom._ vol. i. p. 106 (1796).
[45] Temminck, _Monographies de Mammalogie_, vol. i. p. 56 (1827).
[46] Thomas, _Ann. Mus. Genov._ sér. 2, vol. iv. p. 503 (1887).
[47] Krefft, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1866, p. 434.
[48] Waterhouse, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1836, p. 69.
[49] Geoffroy, _Bull. Soc. Philom._ vol. iii. p. 249 (1803).
[50] Grey, in _Grey’s Australia_, vol. ii, p. 401 (1841).
[51] Ogilby, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1838, p. 25.
[52] Geoffroy, _Ann. du Muséum_, vol. ii. p. 365 (1803).
[53] Owen, _Phil. Trans._ 1872, p. 257.
[54] Gervais and Verraux, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1842, p. 1.
[55] Storr, _Prodromus Meth. Mamm._ p. 33 (1780). Syn. _Phalangista_,
Geoffroy, _Bull. Soc. Philom._ vol i. p. 106 (1796).
[56] Lesson, _Dict. Class. d’Hist. Nat._ vol. xiii. p. 333 (1828).
[57] Ogilby, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1836, p. 26.
[58] Thomas, _Cat. Marsupials Brit. Mus._ p. 163 (1888).
[59] Gray, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1858, p. 109.
[60] Shaw, _Naturalist’s Miscellany_, vol. ii. pl. lx. (1791).
[61] M’Coy, _Ann. Mag. N. H._ (3) xx. p. 287 (1867).
[62] Grey, in _Grey’s Australia_, appendix, vol. ii. p. 407 (1841).
[63] Peters, _Ann. Mus. Genov._ vol. vi. p. 303 (1874).
[64] Desmarest, _Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat._ sér. 2, vol. xxv. p. 405
(1817).
[65] _Cf._ W. A. Forbes, “Anatomy of the Koala,” _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1881,
p. 180.
[66] Blainville, _Bull. Soc. Philom._ 1816, p. 116.
[67] Owen, in _Gervais’s Zool. et Pal. françaises_, 1st ed. pt. i. p. 192
(1849-52).
[68] Ramsay, _Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales_, vol. i. p. 33 (1876).
[69] De Vis, _Proc. Roy. Soc. Queensland_, ser. 2, vol. iii. p. 8 (1888).
[70] Desmarest, _Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat._ sér. 1, vol. xxiv. _Table
Méth._ p. 20 (1804). Syn. _Hypsiprymnus_, Illiger, _Prodromus Syst.
Mamm._ p. 79 (1811).
[71] Gray, _Charlesworth’s Mag. Nat. Hist._ vol. i. p. 584 (1837).
[72] Thomas, _Cat. Marsup. Brit. Mus._ p. 114 (1888).
[73] Garrod, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1875, p. 59.
[74] Thomas, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1886, p. 544.
[75] Schlegel and Müller, _Verh. Nat. Ges. Nederland_, p. 138 (1839-44).
[76] Schlegel and Müller, _Verh. Nat. Ges. Nederland_, p. 130 (1839-44).
[77] Gould, _Monograph of Macropodidæ_, pl. xiii. (1841).
[78] Grey, in _Grey’s Australia_, vol. ii. appendix, p. 402 (1841).
[79] Gray, _Charlesworth’s Mag. Nat. Hist._ vol. i. p. 583 (1837).
[80] Shaw, _Naturalist’s Miscellany_, vol. i. pl. xxxiii. (1790).
[81] For the characters of these species and the under-mentioned distinct
genera, see Owen’s _Extinct Mammals of Australia_ (1877), and Lydekker’s
_Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia in the British Museum_, pt. v. (1887).
[82] Owen, _Phil. Trans._ 1874, p. 264.
[83] Owen, _op. cit._ p. 788.
[84] Owen, _op. cit._ p. 797.
[85] Owen, in _Mitchell’s Eastern Australia_, 2d ed. vol. ii. p. 362
(1838).
[86] Owen, _Cat. Mamm. and Aves, Mus. R. Coll. Surgeons_, p. 314 (1845).
[87] The characters of the chief groups of the Eutheria here given are,
in some measure, a fuller recapitulation of those already detailed in
Chapter III., pp. 83-88.
[88] The name Paratheria has been suggested for this proposed subclass.
[89] In some few Armadillos the suture between the premaxilla and maxilla
passes behind the first upper tooth; but in all other known members of
the order all the teeth are implanted in the maxilla.
[90] See Flower, “On the Mutual Affinities of the Animals composing the
Order Edentata,” _Proceedings of the Zoological Society_, 1882, p. 358.
[91] An attempt has been made to represent these views by the following
classification:
Order EDENTATA.
Suborder PILOSA.
_Bradypodidæ._
_Megatheriidæ._
_Myrmecophagidæ._
Suborder LORICATA.
_Dasypodidæ._
Suborder SQUAMATA.
_Manidæ._
Suborder TUBULIDENTATA.
_Orycteropodidæ._
It may be objected to this arrangement that the _present_ divergence
between the Sloths and Anteaters is hardly sufficiently indicated by
their association in one suborder.—Flower, “On the Arrangement of the
Orders and Families of Mammals,” _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1883, p. 178.
[92] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 50 (1766).
[93] Illiger, _Prodromus Syst. Mamm. et Avium_, p. 108 (1811).
[94] Burmeister, _Sitzb. Ak. Berlin_, vol. xxviii. p. 613 (1882).
[95] Lydekker, in Nicholson and Lydekker’s _Manual of Palæontology_,
vol. ii. p. 1299 (1889). Originally described under the preoccupied name
_Cœlodon_.
[96] Cuvier, _Tableau Élém. d’Hist. Nat. des Animaux_, p. 146 (1798).
[97] An excellent figure of this skeleton, which unfortunately was
incorrectly articulated, and wanted the greater part of the tail,
was published by Pander and D’Alton in 1821, and has been frequently
reproduced in subsequent works.
[98] See E. D. Cape, _Amer. Naturalist_, vol. xxiii. p. 152 (1889).
[99] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 51 (1766).
[100] Professor Cope has recently come to the conclusion that there are
three species; but further evidence is required in support of this view.
[101] Gray, _Annals of Philosophy_, new series, vol. x. p. 343 (1825).
[102] Gray, _Annals of Philosophy_, new series, vol. x. p. 343 (1825).
[103] Harlan, _Ann. New York Lyceum Nat. Hist._ vol. i. p. 237
(1824).—Amended from _Chiamyphorus_.
[104] Linn. _Syst. Nat._, 12th ed. vol. i. p. 54 (1766).
[105] Wagler, _Syst. Amphibien_, etc., p. 36 (1830).
[106] F. Cuvier, _Hist. Nat. des Mammifères_ (1822).—_Priodontes._
[107] Illiger, _Prodromus Syst. Mamm. et Avium_, p. 111 (1811).
[108] Lesson, _Man. de Mammalogie_, p. 309 (1827); _ex._ F. Cuvier,
_Tatusie_.
[109] A single imperfect skin, brought from the province of Ceara in
Brazil, indicates a very remarkable form of Armadillo, named by A.
Milne-Edwards _Scleropleura brunetti_ (_Ann. Sc. Nat._ xvi. p. 8, 1872).
The dermal scutes are said to be much less developed than in other
members of the family, and confined to the sides, all the median portion
of the back being clothed with a flexible hairy skin. The head is broad
and short, the ears small and far apart. The tail is long, and almost
entirely devoid of scutes. The feet are unknown.
[110] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 52 (1766).
[111] _Mammalian Descent_, p. 95.
[112] _Mammalian Descent_, p. 99.
[113] Forsyth-Major, _Comptes Rendus_, vol. cvii. p. 1180 (1888).
[114] Geoffroy, _Décade Philosophique_, 1795 (_teste_ Agassiz).
[115] _Proceedings of the Royal Society_; vol. xlvii. p. 246 (1890).
[116] Storr, _Prodromus Meth. Mamm._ p. 41 (1780).
[117] _Zool. Jahrbuch_, vol. i. p. 1 (1886).
[118] Illiger, _Prodromus Syst. Mamm. et Avium_, p. 140 (1811).
[119] Illiger, _Prodromus Syst. Mamm. et Avium_, p. 141 (1811).—Amended
from _Rytina_.
[120] Nordenskiöld, during his voyage in the _Vega_, obtained some
information from the natives of Behring Island which led him to believe
that a few individuals may have survived to a much later date, even to
1854; but this conclusion is disputed by later writers.
[121] Kaup, _Neues Jahrbuch_, 1838, pp. 319 and 536.
[122] This is an important distinction from the Sirenia, but a character
common to nearly all other mammals. It is doubtful whether there is any
foundation for the statement that these epiphyses remain ununited for an
exceptionally long period in the Cetacea.
[123] A character repeated in some of the Seals.
[124] These have been described in detail by Professor Struthers in the
_Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_, 1881.
[125] The ankylosed mass of cervical vertebræ, on which the genus
_Palæocetus_ was established, was regarded by its describer as having
probably come from the Kimeridge Clay, but the mineral condition of the
specimen points to the Red Crag as the place of origin.
[126] There is much resemblance in the larynx of the Hippopotamus, but
none in that of the Seal, to the same organ in the Cetacea.
[127] German _Meerschwein_, whence the French _Marsouin_. “Porpoise” is
said to be derived from “_Porc-poisson_.”
[128] Icel. _hvalr_; Dan. and Swed. _hval_; Anglo-Saxon _hwæl_; Germ.
_wal_, _walfisch_. The meaning apparently is “roller,” the word being
closely allied to “wheel” (Skeat).
[129] These were discovered in the Greenland Whale by Geoffroy St.
Hilaire, whose observations were confirmed and extended to other genera
by Eschricht. They have been very fully described in _Balænoptera
rostrata_ by Julin (_Archives de Biologie_, i. 1880).
[130] For the structure of whalebone see Hunter, “Observations on the
Structure and Economy of Whales,” _Phil. Trans._ 1787; Eschricht and
Reinhardt, _On the Greenland Right Whale_, English translation by the Ray
Society, 1866, pp. 67-78; and Sir W. Turner, in _Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin._
1870.
[131] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 105 (1766).
[132] Gray, _Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales in Brit. Mus._ p. 39 (1871).
[133] Cope, _Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Philad._ 1869, p. 15.
[134] Gray, _Zoology of Erebus and Terror_, p. 16 (1846).
[135] See J. Struthers, “On the Anatomy of _Megaptera longimana_,”
_Journ. Anatomy and Physiology_, 1887-89.
[136] Lacépède, “Table des Ordres,” _Hist. Nat. des Cétacés_, p. xxxvi.
(1804).
[137] See P. J. Van Beneden, “Histoire Naturelles des Balénoptères,”
_Mém. Acad. Belgique_, xli. 1887.
[138] In a recent memoir Professor D’Arcy Thompson has brought forward
some arguments to show that the Zeuglodonts have no direct affinities
with the Cetacea, but have on the other hand the strongest possible
relation with the Pinnipede Carnivora. “On the Systematic position of
Zeuglodon,” _Studies from the Museum of Zoology, Dundee_, vol. i. No. 9,
1890.
[139] An appearance in one specimen has been described by C. G. Carus
as indicating a vertical succession of the teeth, but the evidence upon
which this rests is by no means satisfactory, and appears to admit of
another explanation.
[140] A mutilated humerus of _Zeuglodon cetoides_ has given rise to many
conjectures, appearing to some anatomists to indicate seal-like freedom
of motion at the elbow-joint, while to others its characters appear to be
truly Cetacean.
[141] See _Trans. Geol. Soc._ ser. 2, vol. vi. p. 67.
[142] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 107 (1766).
[143] Gray, _Zoology of Erebus and Terror_, p. 22 (1846). Usually spelt
_Kogia_.
[144] Lacépède, “Table des Ordres,” _Hist. Nat. des Cétacés_, p. xliv.
(1804).
[145] See the figures in the _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1882, pp. 728, 729.
[146] Cuvier, _Ossemens Fossiles_, 2d ed. vol. v. p. 352 (1823).
[147] Gervais, _Ann. Sci. Nat._ ser. 3, vol. xiv. p. 16 (1850). For the
very complicated synonymy of this genus, see _Trans. Zool. Soc._ vol.
viii. p. 208.
[148] Duvernoy, _Ann. Sci. Nat.-Zoologie_, sér. 3, vol. xv. p. 41 (1851).
[149] Duvernoy, _op. cit._ p. 61.
[150] Grateloup, _Act. Ac. R. Sci. Bordeaux_, 1840, p. 208.
[151] Wagler, _Syst. Amphib._ etc., p. 35 (1830).
[152] The anatomy of _Platanista_ is fully described by J. Anderson,
_Zoological Results of Two Expeditions to Western Yunnan_, 1878.
[153] D’Orbigny, _Nouv. Ann. Mus. Paris_, vol. iii. p. 31 (1834).
[154] Gray, _Zoology of Erebus and Terror_, p. 46 (1846).
[155] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 105 (1766).
[156] Lacépède, _Hist. Nat. des Cétacés_, p. xli. (1804).
[157] Cuvier, _Règne Animal_, vol. i. p. 279 (1817).
[158] _Zoology of Erebus and Terror_, p. 30 (1846). The name is
preoccupied by Lamarck for a genus of Polyzoa (1816).
[159] Gray, _Cat. Cetacea Brit. Mus._ p. 106 (1850).
[160] Gray, _Cat. Seals and Whales in Brit. Mus._ p. 285 (1866).
[161] _Anatomical and Zoological Researches, comprising an Account of the
Zoological Results of the two Expeditions to Western Yunnan, in 1868 and
1875_ (1878).
[162] Gray, _Zoology of Erebus and Terror_, p. 33 (1846).
[163] Reinhardt, _Overs. Dan. Sezsk. Forh._ 1862, p. 151.
[164] Lesson, _N. Tab. d. Règne Animal—Mamm._ p. 200 (1842).
[165] Gray, _Zoology of Erebus and Terror_, p. 30 (1846).
[166] Gray, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1870, p. 77.
[167] Gray, _Zoology of Erebus and Terror_, p. 35 (1846).
[168] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 108 (1766).
[169] Gervais, _Hist. Nat. des Mammifères_, vol. ii. p. 323 (1855).
[170] Gervais, _Ostéographie des Cétacés_, p. 604 (1880).
[171] Gray, _Zoology of Erebus and Terror_, p. 43 (1846).
[172] Gray, _Cat. Seals and Whales Brit. Mus._ 2d ed. p. 393 (1866).
[173] Since this was in type the discovery of transient rudimentary
clavicles in the embryo of the Sheep has been announced by Wineza
(_Morpholog. Jahrb._ xvi. p. 647).
[174] Also known as Diplarthra.
[175] The pollex is present in the manus of the extinct _Cotylops_.
[176] In the table on p. 89 the Peccaries are included in the _Suidæ_.
[177] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 101 (1766).
[178] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 102 (1766).
[179] If from any accidental circumstances these teeth are not constantly
worn down by friction, they grow into a complete circle, the point
penetrating the bone of the jaw close to the root of the tooth. The
natives of the Fiji Islands avail themselves of this circumstance to
produce one of their most valued ornaments—a circular boar’s tusk: the
upper canines being extracted, the lower ones are allowed to grow to the
desired form.
[180] See Garson, _Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond._ 1883, p. 413.
[181] Lesson, _Man. d. Mamm._, p. 337 (1827), “Babirusa.”
[182] Cuvier, _Règne-Animal_, vol. i. p. 236 (1817).
[183] Cuvier, _Règne Animal_, vol. i. p. 237 (1817).
[184] Professor Cope considers that there is a third species, for which
he has proposed the name _D. angularis_.
[185] This name (Leidy, 1851) is preoccupied by _Orodus_ (Agassiz, 1838).
[186] The stomach of the Camel inhabiting the Arabian desert is commonly
looked upon as a striking example of specialised structure, adapted or
modified in direct accordance with a highly specialised mode of life; it
is therefore very remarkable to find an organ exactly similar, except in
some unessential details, in the Llamas of the Peruvian Andes and the
Guanacos of the Pampas. No hypothesis except that of a common origin will
satisfactorily account for this, and, granting that this view is correct,
it becomes extremely interesting to find for how long a time two genera
may be isolated and yet retain such close similarities in parts which in
other groups appear readily subject to adaptive modifications.
[187] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 90 (1766).
[188] There is much confusion as to the proper use of the names Camel and
Dromedary. It is now generally accepted that the former is the common
term for all the members of the genus, and that Dromedary should be
confined to the lighter and swifter breeds of the one-humped species. One
of the oldest pictures of the two-humped Camel extant, painted on the
wall of the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, has, however, “Dromedary”
inscribed under it.
[189] Illiger, _Prodromus Syst. Mamm._ p. 103 (1811).
[190] _Natural History of the Strait of Magellan_, 1871.
[191] Pallas, _Spicilegia Zoologica_, vol. xiii. p. 27 (1779).
[192] Kaup, _Ossemens Fossiles de Darmstadt_, pt. 5, p. 92 (1836). This
name, which was proposed for a fossil species, antedates _Hyomoschus_,
Gray, applied to the living form.
[193] For the anatomy of this group see A. H. Garrod, _Proc. Zool. Soc._
1877, p. 2.
[194] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 91 (1766).
[195] For the anatomy of _Moschus_ see Flower, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1875,
p. 159; and Garrod, _ibid._ 1877, p. 287.
[196] _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1878, p. 889.
[197] De Blainville, _Bull. Soc. Philom._ 1816, p. 74.
[198] Milne-Edwards, _Nouv. Arch. du Muséum_, vol. vii. Bull. p. 93
(1872).
[199] Linn. _Syst. Nat._ 12th ed. vol. i. p. 92 (1766).
[200] Hamilton-Smith, in _Griffith’s Animal Kingdom_, vol. v. p. 304
(1827).
[201] Hamilton-Smith, in _Griffith’s Animal Kingdom_, vol. v. p. 303
(1827).
[202] Scott, _Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Philad._ 1885, p. 181.
[203] Hamilton-Smith, in _Griffith’s Animal Kingdom_, vol. v. p. 313
(1827).
[204] Swinhoe, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1870, p. 90.
[205] Gray, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1850, p. 237.
[206] Gray, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1850, p. 242.
[207] This accessory column is shown in the figure of the molar of
_Boselaphus_ on p. 311.
[208] Zimmermann, _Geograph. Geschichte_, vol. ii. p. 125 (1780).
[209] Ord. _Journ. de Physique_, vol. lxxxvii. p. 149 (1818).
[210] Blainville, _Bull. Soc. Philom._ 1816, p. 75.
[211] Lichtenstein, _Berlin Ges. Natuforsch. Freunde Magazin_, vol. vi.
pp. 152, 165 (1814).
[212] F. E. Blaauw, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1889, p. 2.
[213] Hamilton-Smith, in _Griffith’s Animal Kingdom_, vol. iv. p. 258
(1827). Taken to include _Grimmia_, _Terphone_, etc., of Gray.
[214] Leach, _Trans. Linn. Soc._ vol. xiv. p. 524 (1823).
[215] Hamilton-Smith, in _Griffith’s Animal Kingdom_, vol. iv. p. 269
(1827).
[216] _Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia_, p. 268.