356 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



Hadj-Mohamraed-Ben-Abd-el-Djillil, has not only, says M. du Couret, 

 vouched for the existence of the race, but has stated that the sultan was 

 at one time at war with them, and has sent drawings of several of them 

 to some of the most learned naturali*ts at Paris,. 



"Whether or not all this testimony be sufficient to prove the existence of 

 a race of men with caudal appendages, is a matter for individual opinion. 

 For ourselves, we will pronounce neither one way nor the other ; for if, 

 on the one hand, it be hard to believe that M. du Couret, M. de Castelneau, 

 and other distinguished scientific men, are foolish victims of credulity or 

 dupes of impostors, on the other hand it is not a little singular that the 

 precise whereabouts of the Niam-Niam country is not described, and more 

 singular still, that none of the tailed .race should have yet been sent to 

 Europe, though, as we are told in the book before us, they are by no 

 means rare at Mecca, in the towns on the coasts of the Red Sea, and in the 

 Arab slave markets. M. du Couret himself appears to feel this difficulty ; 

 for he says, in concluding his work : 



" If, as I hope, I return to Africa, I will not fail to occupy myself anew 

 with this interesting question, and I will spare no pains to bring into 

 France a living Ghilane, if it be possible, or, if not, at least the skeleton 

 of one, in order to convince the most incredulovis." London Lit. Gazette. 



MAN versus APES. 



The following is an abstract from a lecture before the British Associa- 

 tion, on the " anthropoid apes," by Prof. Owen : The lecturer rejecting 

 as far as possible the technicalities which sometimes make scientific dis- 

 courses repulsive to a mixed aydience proceeded to define the known 

 species of those large tailless apes which form the highest group of their 

 order, (quadruma,na } )a.\\& consequently make the nearest approach to man. 

 He determined the true zoological qharacters of the known orang outangs and 

 chimpanzees a^ manifested by adult specimens, pointed out the relative prox- 

 imity of these caricatures of humanity to the human species, and indicated 

 the leading distinctions which separate the most anthropoid of these apes 

 from man. Entering then upon the subject of the varieties of the human 

 race, the professor defined the degree in which the races differed from 

 each other in color, stature, and modifications of the skeleton. He de- 

 scribed the probable causes of these varieties, and proceeded to examine 

 how far any of the known causes which modify specific characters could 

 have operated so as to produce in the chimpanzees or orungs a nearer ap- 

 proach to the human character than they actually present. He pointed 

 out some characters of the skeleton of the apes, such, for example, as the 

 great supcrorbital ridge in the gorilla ape, which could not have been pro- 

 dixced by the habitual action of muscles, or by any other known influence, 

 that, operating on successive generations, produces change in the forms 

 and proportions of bones. The equable length of the human teeth, the 

 concomitant absence of any interval in the dental series, and of any sexual 



