88 ORIGIN, ETC., OF THE FAUNA. 
In view of the additions and modifications thus briefly referred to, it is necessary to 
gather together the principal records that have been published during the last quarter 
of a century concerning the Mammals of Central America*. ‘The plan adopted will 
be to treat the orders separately and to append to each a brief account of its paleon- 
tological history and such particulars of its distribution as have a bearing on the 
matter in hand. 
Order PRIMATES. 
The American Monkeys (Cebidee) and Marmosets (Callitrichide) constitute the 
Platyrhine tribe of Primates as opposed to the Catarhine tribe embracing the 
Monkeys, Apes, and Men of the Old World. ‘The Central American species belong 
to genera inhabiting also South America, where they are restricted to the forested 
districts east of the Andes, most of them being of tolerably wide range within those 
limits. In Central America they are similarly limited to the forest. Of the Cebide, 
Squirrel Monkeys (Saimiri=Chrysothrix) extend to Costa Rica, Spider-Monkeys 
(Ateles), and Howlers (Alowatta) to Vera Cruz in Mexico, Capuchins (Cebus) to 
Nicaragua, and Douroucoulis (Aotus=Nyctipithecus) to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, 
but the latter locality needs confirmation. Of the Callitrichide, Geoffroy’s Tamarin 
(Edipomidas geoffroy’) ranges from Colombia to Costa Rica. 
There are no Monkeys in the Antilles, apart from introduced species, and none in 
North America. 
There isa good deal of evidence that Monkeys are the descendants of Lemurs, which 
date back to the Lower and Middle Eocene of North America and Europe, and survive 
at the present time in Africa, Madagascar, and Southern Asia. Oddly enough, this 
group of Primates never seems to have entered South or Central America, and no 
fossil remains of Monkeys have been found in North America. Nevertheless, Platy- 
rhine Monkeys go back to the Upper Miocene in South America if the reference of 
Homunculus to that group be, as it appears to be, correct, and no extinct members 
of the group (which is, as a whole, more Lemuroid than the Old World Catarhini) 
have been found outside that continent. There are one or two facts which suggest 
Africa as their original home. 
In Madagascar there has been found an extinct Lemur (Archwolemur) which. is 
claimed to have Platyrhine characters in its jaws and teeth, and the Oligocene of Egypt 
has yielded a Monkey (Parapithecus) structurally bridging the interval between existing 
Lemuroids of the Tarsioid (Zarsius) group and the Simiid or monkey-like Primates. If 
the interpretations put upon these fossils be correct, it seems that the transitional stages 
between the Lemurs and the Monkeys were probably evolved in an Afro-Mascarene 
* It is perhaps necessary to explain in this connection that here and elsewhere in this article the term 
“ Central America” is used comprehensively, as it is used in the title of the ‘ Biologia,’ to embrace the area lying 
between, and including, Mexico and Panama, Lower California being excluded. 
