DEEMATOGLYPHICS IN PRIMATES 155 



mates, so that if Hylobates were rated as 1, Pongo would be 2, 

 Gorilla 4, Pan 8, and Homo 22). 



With regard to the amount of asymmetry in the right and 

 left members, the prevailing relation in the sole is for in- 

 tensities to be greater on the right side, but in the palm right 

 and left sides are about equally divided among the genera 

 as to direction of ascendancy in pattern intensity. It is pos- 

 sible that special significance should be attached to the greater 

 pattern intensity of left palms in the Old World monkeys, 

 where this disparity is consistent through all four genera; 

 Saimiri and Gorilla are the only other genera presenting the 

 inferior pattern intensity in right palms. 



The occurrence of marked differences among the groups 

 of primates in the magnitudes of bilateral asymmetries of 

 pattern intensity recalls the findings recorded by Schultz ( '30) 

 in the lengths of bones of right and left sides. He finds that 

 bilateral symmetry is more prevalent in the lower primates 

 than in the higher groups, and to this extent the results agree 

 with those obtained in the comparisons of pattern intensity. 

 Within the higher primates the seriations of progressive in- 

 crease in asymmetry of bone lengths and pattern intensities 

 are quite different, in fact showing in some respects a tendency 

 toward a reversal of order. 



The possible interrelationship of asymmetries in pattern 

 intensity and functional sidedness has not been investigated 

 in any primate except man. With the appearance of the 

 report by Finch ('41) on tests of handedness in thirty chim- 

 panzees, it was at first hoped that material in the writers' 

 collection might afford an opportunity to follow up this ques- 

 tion. The animals used by Finch are in the colony of the Yale 

 Laboratories of Primate Biology, the same source as the 

 material studied by Cummins and Spragg in a survey of 

 dermatoglyphics of Pan. Through lack of coincidence of indi- 

 viduals recorded for handedness and represented by prints, 

 the number available for correlating handedness and dermato- 

 glyphic traits is so reduced that little can be gained ; even the 

 complete series of thirty animals would have been question- 



