MAN'S HUMBLE COUSINS
We have now arrived at the highest division of the Mammalia, the order
Primates, a term here signifying "first" in rank of importance by
reason of the possession of a structure and faculties superior, as a
whole, to any other class. It includes the lemurs, the monkeys and
baboons, the anthropoid apes, and mankind. Man's undeniable superiority
to all the others is intellectual rather than physical (for in this
or that particular he may be inferior in ability to many of the lower
animals), and is much less apparent in primitive men than in those
highly civilized.
All primates have five fingers or toes, each covered at the tip by
a flat nail; and in most cases the thumb or great toe, or both, are
"opposable"--that is, may be bent around opposite the other digits so
as to form a grasping organ. The higher the primate in the scale of
organization the more perfectly are its forelimbs and hands adapted
to seizing and handling objects, and its hind limbs to supporting and
moving the body; and the whole sole of the foot rests upon the ground.
These and other characteristics fit the primates for life in trees,
where nearly all spend their time. The number of young, as a rule, is
no more than two annually, and they are born in a helpless condition,
hence they must for a period be nursed and be carried about by the
mother. The food consists almost wholly of fruit and other soft or
easily digested vegetable materials, insects and eggs, and the teeth
are of nearly even size.
LEMURS, GALAGOS AND AYE-AYES
The lemurs, or half-apes, are a large group of small tree-dwelling
animals that paleontology shows were in early Tertiary times much
more closely connected with monkeys than they are now; and it also
shows that in a former age their ancestors were scattered all over
the temperate parts of the globe; this assists us to account for the
strange distribution of the remnants that now live--a part of them in
the Malayan archipelago and a part in central Africa and Madagascar,
in which island, indeed, lemurs abound more than elsewhere, owing
largely, no doubt, to the scarcity of enemies. They differ from monkeys
in having elongated jaws, giving a foxlike aspect to the face, in the
woolliness of the coat (as a rule), and in their nocturnal habits and
weird cries that have been the source of many curious superstitions and
a reverence that no monkey ever inspired.
The most specialized of the group is a wan little Malayan creature
about the size of a small rat, with a long tail, long hind legs, and
toes ending in pads that enable the tarsier, or "malmag," as it is
called, to climb the smoothest bamboo. Its eyes are so big they seem
to leave no room for cheeks. Even more curious is the aye-aye of
Madagascar, which resembles a small squirrel with a terrier's face; its
hind feet are like a monkey's hand, and its forefeet are composed of
very long naked fingers armed with sharp claws useful in pulling bugs
and grubs out of crevices in bark, or the pulp out of fruits.
The typical lemurs have rounded heads, doglike muzzles, and a soft,
thick, woolly fur of various colors that is usually extended to form a
long, bushy tail; and the largest of them, the "babakoto" of eastern
Africa, is as big as a cat, and makes the woods ring at night with
doleful howls. They hide in holes in trees or in leafy nests during
the day, and at night wander about in trees, or on the rocks of the
mountains they frequent, in search of insects and sleeping birds and
their eggs, etc. All the lemurs proper, and their relatives, the
endrinas, belong to Madagascar. On the mainland a somewhat different
race, the galagos, abound throughout central Africa, and are renowned
for their leaping powers, general activity, and willingness to eat
anything they can catch or find ripe in the way of sweet fruit. They
are interesting as pets. The "slow lemurs" of the Malayan islands, on
the other hand, are noted for their sleepiness, moving about the trees
with such slothlike sluggishness and caution that it is a wonder they
ever capture enough food to keep alive. They are regarded with great
fear by the natives, not because they are more harmful than the other
lemurs, which are also dreaded, but because of strange supernatural
powers attributed to them. These ideas are older than our science, for
the name, _Lemures_, given them means "ghosts."
A remarkable thing about the Primates is that they show, even in
man himself, many structural traits recalling the anatomy of that
remote source of so many mammalian branches, the creodonts; and the
lemurs seem to stand between the Insectivora and the Primates, and
are certainly the most ancient part of the latter order, with many
affinities to the former. In a similar way they are connected with
the monkeys and apes by the marmosets. A very suggestive fact is that
the scattered distribution of modern lemurs much resembles that of the
comparatively few existing insectivores, especially as to Madagascar,
which was united with the continent of Africa during the earlier half
of the Tertiary era.
MARMOSETS, MONKEYS AND BABOONS
The marmosets, or "teetees" (titis), are a small family (Hapalidæ) of
little, arboreal, monkeylike creatures much enjoyed as pets in the
American tropics, but rarely able to endure our northern winters even
when protected most carefully from the cold. They look and act much
like pretty squirrels, have long, but not prehensile tails, and some of
them, as the "tamarins," have long silky manes. They possess several
lemurlike features, and, as has been said, are a connecting link
between the lemurs and the monkeys proper.
All the monkeys of the world are members of one or the other of two
families only--the Cebidæ, all American, and the Cercopithidæ, confined
to the Old World. They differ in several structural particulars, among
others in the number of teeth, and in the matter of bare spots of naked
skin on the buttocks (not seen in the Cebidæ), in the prehensility of
the tail, exclusively American, etc.; but the most striking difference
between the two groups is found in the nostrils. In the Old World
monkeys and apes (Catarrhines) the nostrils look downward and are close
together; in American monkeys (Platyrrhines) they are widely separated
and look outward. This absolute distinction between the Primates of the
two hemispheres has existed as far back as the race can be traced by
paleontologists, who have discovered no intermediate forms.
The American monkeys, or "sons of Cebidæ," as Dr. Cope once
expressed it, comprise the capuchins (Cebus), which may be taken
as the representative genus, the woolly monkeys (Lagothrix), the
spider monkeys (Ateles and Eriodes), the howlers (Mycetes), the
sakis (Pithecia and Brachyurus), the night monkeys or durukulis
(Nyctipithecus) and the squirrel monkeys or saimiris (Chrysothrix and
Callithrix). All are small, the largest having a body no more than
twenty inches in length, and are hairy or woolly, without any naked
callosities. Their headquarters are in the great forests of equatorial
South America, which is the exclusive home of many species, some of
which are restricted to narrow areas, the great rivers often acting as
impassable boundaries. No monkeys ascend high in the Andes, or reach
the West Coast; and none is found far south of the forests of Brazil or
north of south-central Mexico.
They are adapted to a life in trees, and most of them are aided in
security in hurrying about their precarious paths through the tree tops
by the fact that the tip of the tail, naked on the underside, will
almost automatically curl around a branch, gripping it so firmly that
the animal may hang by this grasp alone, leaving all four hands and
feet free for other service. Their agility, especially in the smaller
long-legged spider monkeys, is proverbial; but one must not believe the
old wonder tales of "living bridges" and the like. Best known are the
capuchins, which furnish most of the pets and organ grinders' slaves
seen in the United States; and their manner of life is substantially
that of the whole tribe, with such exceptions as that of the big-eyed
durukulis, which are strictly nocturnal in habit, and the big reddish
"howlers" that make the forest ring with lionlike roars at certain
times, giving the impression that a large company are howling in chorus
when it is only a solitary old male that makes all the noise. The
capuchins, like most other species, go about in small, orderly bands,
led by the oldest male, and remain most of the time in very tall trees.
Bates, in his "Naturalist on the Amazons," describes how, when the
foremost of a flock of monkeys reaches the outermost branch of a tall
tree, he springs forth into the air without a moment's hesitation, and
alights on the dome of yielding foliage belonging to the neighboring
tree, maybe fifty feet beneath, all the rest following his example.
The Old World monkeys are, as a family, of higher grade, larger size,
and greater historical interest than those of America. Fossil remains
show that the tribe is an old one, and was once able to range all
over Europe; now the few half-captive and altogether mischievous apes
on the rock of Gibraltar represent all that remain of a species once
numerous even in northern France, and so recently as the Pleistocene.
This ape is a macaque (Macacus), a genus that otherwise is purely
Asiatic and contains some of the most celebrated of the monkeys. Thus,
the suitably named pig-tailed macaque of the Far East is trained, in
Sumatra and Borneo, to climb the coconut palms and select and throw
down ripe nuts--the most really useful thing to the credit of monkeys;
the Japanese species is the one that is so much used in the decorative
designs of that artistic people; and the best known of all is the
common Bengal or rhesus monkey, which is revered by some sects of
Hindus, and is treated with tolerance or made a pet of, or an aid to
jugglers, throughout India. Several other macaques are common pets and
servants in the East. The macaques go about in flocks, and often come
to the ground. All have the habit of cramming food into their cheek
pouches for mastication at leisure. The majority of the species are
very docile when young.
Closely related to the macaques are the mangabeys, or white-eyelidded
monkeys of West Africa, and the central African genus Cercopithecus,
which includes many small-sized, handsome, tree-living kinds, of which
the most widely known is the diana monkey, whose long fringe of white
hair hanging from its neck and chest is in much demand in the fur
market. Even nearer relatives are those interesting but often repulsive
creatures, the baboons, between which and macaques stands the doglike,
stub-tailed, ground-keeping black ape of Celebes. This eastern instance
of an otherwise African group, like the single western macaque,
indicates, what fossil remains prove, that both genera were once far
more wide-ranging than at present.
The African baboons, of which there are about a dozen species, present
striking peculiarities in appearance, and all are much alike. In size
they vary from the bigness of a spaniel to that of a mastiff, and a
comparison with dogs is apt, for these apes go about habitually on
all fours, their limbs are stout and of about equal length, and their
heads and muzzles are canine; hence the ancient name _cynocephali_,
dog-headed. In some, as the mandrill, the naked nose is swollen at the
sides like a hog's snout, thrown into ridges and colored black, pale
pink, or blue and purple; while the great callosities on the stern are
of the same or contrasted colors. The fur is blackish, or yellowish or
greenish, grizzled by the fact that every hair is ringed with various
colors; or the coat may be party-colored. They go in bands, sometimes
exceeding one hundred individuals of all ages, and choose for their
lairs cliffs and rocky ridges full of crevices and thickets, such as
the extraordinary Black Rocks of Angola, where the yellow baboon dwells
in thousands, and subsists mainly on lichens. In such places they are
safe against any enemies except leopards (which the old males are said
to be able to vanquish) and the larger serpents or birds of prey;
and these can make away only with the young now and then. Dogs dare
not attack full-sized baboons, which have been seen again and again
going fearlessly to the aid of some little one that dogs have tried to
seize. Their sense of smell is amazingly keen, especially for hidden
water springs in the desert. It is recorded that the Bushmen of the
Kalahari plains used to train captives to help them search for water
when famine was impending; and undoubtedly the observation of what
roots, etc., these animals were accustomed to eat taught the earliest
human venturers into these regions what might be used there in the way
of food. Baboons also eat lizards and the like, and are fond of honey
and certain gums. With these habits it is not surprising that they are
everywhere exceedingly harmful to plantations, tearing up or trampling
down more than they can consume, and destroying a field in a night.
Some of these baboons are as tamable and teachable as other monkeys,
but they grow unruly and ferocious as they become old. They were tamed
and trained in ancient Egypt, where a religious sect held the shaggy
Arabian species (_Cynocephalus hamadryas_) to be sacred to Thoth, whose
statues are a human figure with a baboon's head.
GIBBON, CHIMPANZEE, GORILLA, ORANG-UTAN
This brings us to the anthropoid ("manlike") apes of the family
Simiidæ, which differ from the inferior apes that have been described
in fewer particulars than their size and appearance might suggest.
Thoroughly arboreal for the most part, when these apes come to the
ground they progress in a semi-erect fashion. Moreover when they put
their hands upon the ground to aid in walking, they do not rest their
weight, as do the lower apes, upon the flat of the hand, but upon the
back of the fingers. None of the anthropoids has a tail.
The gibbons are an Indo-Malayan group of monkeylike anthropoids with
small, long-nosed faces, and arms so long that when the gibbon stands
erect the fingers touch the ground. By means of these long arms they
swing themselves through the tree tops with astonishing speed, and are
adept at climbing and leaping about the mountain slopes that are their
favorite resorts. All the gibbons are noted for their far-carrying
voices, and often a band will utter weird howls in chorus answered by
another band, so that the forest is filled with indescribable noises.
The largest is the jet black, Sumatran "siamang," three feet tall.
In the same region, precisely eastern Sumatra and Borneo, lives a
larger relative, the orang-utan ("man of the woods"), or "mias," as it
is known to the Dyaks. Like the gibbons it feeds on leaves, buds and
soft fruits, especially the big, pulpy durian; and also like them is
shy and mild in disposition.
[Illustration: GORILLAS AND GIBBONS
The five upper figures are young gorillas in various postures; the
three lower are adult gibbons. (Lydekker.)]
This Malayan ape is smaller and weaker than its African cousins,
males standing not more than four feet six inches, and weighing 160
pounds, while the females are smaller. The body is bulky, the belly
protuberant, and the legs very short, while the arms are so long that
the fingers hang down to the ankle. The coat is a variable dark brick
red and long, forming a beard in old males. The head is short and high,
with the bony crest of the skull and the ridge over the eyes less
prominent than in the gorilla; while the nose is insignificant, and the
jaws are large and protrusive, with a long smooth upper lip. The eyes
have a pleading expression, the ears are small and closely appressed,
and many of the older males have the cheeks greatly and distinctively
broadened by flat callosities. Lastly, although its brain is most
like that of man, the orang-utan is inferior, in general, to both the
gorilla and the chimpanzee.
The chimpanzee and gorilla belong together, not only because both are
African, but because they are more closely related to one another
than to the Malayan anthropoids. The chimpanzee is to be found in the
equatorial forests north of the Congo, and also all along the upper
valley of the Nile and about the Great Lakes; but the gorilla seems
to be restricted to the rough coastal region between the Congo and
Kamerun. Both are black-haired apes, growing nearly to the height of
a man of medium size, but with short legs, very long arms, massive
chests and shoulders, and huge strength. The face and palms of the
chimpanzee are pale flesh color, those of the gorilla black. Both
make their homes in trees, feeding on succulent leaves, sprouts and
fruit, and like the orang-utans, making nightly platform like nests of
branches on which to sleep; but the old male gorilla is said to sleep
on the ground at the base of the tree in which its family reposes. Both
spend much time on the ground hunting for food, and they invade the
plantations of the Negroes, who are greatly afraid of them, and wreak
much damage there. Dr. Garner, whose investigations of their habits,
in his attempt to learn whether they and the monkeys of the region
had anything that might be called rudiments of a language, resulted
in adding much of importance in regard to them, reported that despite
its superior strength, the gorilla was in constant fear of the more
active chimpanzee, and fled whenever one approached. The best and most
recent observations indicate that the gorilla is not quarrelsome and
aggressive, but disposed to hide away from and avoid men whenever it
can, rather than to attack them. Nevertheless all these great apes are
debased, savage brutes of which nothing good may be said, despite the
fact that when caught young chimpanzees, at least, prove docile and
able to learn some simple imitations of human behavior; but in old age
even they become sullen and dangerous toward trainers who have treated
them with uniform kindness. They are base caricatures of men--side
lines of development that have proved failures in nature's experiments
toward making something out of simian material.
The successful line of human descent began far back of their earliest
specific history, and has developed quite independent of these brutal
offshoots from some parental stem of which we have no definite
knowledge.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Small capitals have been rendered in full capitals.
oe-ligatures have been converted to oe.
A number of minor spelling errors have been corrected without note.