454 



EVOLUTION AND ANIMAL LIFE 



resentative among living forms of the Hominidse, the highest 

 family of the order of Primates. To the species, man, Lin- 

 nseus gave the scientific name of Homo sapiens, this being re- 

 garded by him as the primitive species which has diverged 

 into several geographical varieties or races. Of these, at least 

 three might well be regarded as distinct species. The form 

 called by Linnaeus Homo sapiens europceus includes not only 

 the white men of Europe, but allied races of Africa and Asia, 

 as the Moors, the Jews, the Turks, the Arabs, the Hindus 

 and the Ainus of northern Japan. To Homo asiaticus belong 



FIG. 282. Upper teeth of man and the orang-utan: At left, of a Caucasian; in middle, 

 of a negro; at right, of a grown orang-utan. The condition in the negro is 

 between that in the orang-utan and that in the Caucasian. (After Wieders- 

 heim.) 



the Mongolian races, probably the Esquimaux and Aleuts of 

 North America, and perhaps the American Indians (Homo 

 americanus) , with the Malays, the South Sea Islanders, and the 

 Australians as well. Homo afer of Africa and adjacent islands 

 comprises the kinky-haired negroes and negritos. 



Structurally the members of the genus Homo are closely 

 allied to the anthropoid apes. The actual differences in 

 anatomy are very slight. The differences in degree of mental 

 endowment are enormous, but it can be shown that these dis- 

 tinctions are, for the most part, of degree only, associated with 

 the greater size and greater degree of specialization of the brain 

 of man. Homologies of the closest sort exist, involving every 

 element in structure as well as every function of the organism 

 and every known mental attribute. The anthropoid or man- 

 like apes constitute the family of Siniiidae. The principal 

 species are the following, beginning with the lowest or most 

 monkeylike: Hylobates, the gibbons, of several species, notable 



