222 AFFINITIES AND GEOGRAPHICAL 



lemur, climbs slowly and solemnly from bough to bough : its 

 toes are placed two and two, presenting an exact analogy to 

 the opposable thumb of the Primates ; and its foot is constantly 

 used as a hand for conveying food to the mouth : its chatter- 

 ing voice is also similar ; and, in the gift of speech, it rivals 

 man himself: its large brain and peculiar tact in imitation are 

 still additional similarities. I should, therefore, place the 

 genus Psittacus as one of the Primates among birds." 1 The 

 explanation is easy : the monkeys either are the descendants 

 of the line which at an earlier period gave parrots, or the parrots 

 come from a sub-line representing the monkeys in their greater 

 line. In the same way, the pig is the relative or analogue of 

 the duck, the bullock of the turkey, the squirrel of the monkey, 

 the furtive springing cat of the equally furtive springing serpent, 

 and so forth. Strange thus to trace in the humble and ancient 

 animal a prophecy of the higher and more recent ; the cepha- 

 lopod, for example, foreshowing the shark the shark the 

 saurian, the saurian the vulture and mammalian carnivore. It 

 is curious to observe in each line through all grades a continuity 

 of character. Thus the most remarkable power of the Primates, 

 that of grasping, is seen in the peculiar power from which the 

 insessorial birds take their name, as well as in the extraordinary 

 grasping faculty which is exercised under peculiar circum- 

 stances by the Batrachia. The long vermiform body and 

 stealthy movements of the serpent foretel the similar charac- 

 teristics of the musteline animals. The migratory habits of 

 the chelonia are re-produced in the migratory habits which at- 

 tach both to birds and to the ruminants : thus the voyage of 

 three thousand miles which the turtle will make in order to 

 lay her eggs on Ascension Island, the vast vernal flight of the 

 swallow from Africa to England for incubation, the roaming 

 disposition of the hyperborean deer and the American bison, 

 are all kindred phenomena, comprehended under one law of 

 their gracious Creator : each race and sub-race true from first 

 to last to its allotted instincts. 



A result of very profound interest may be expected from the 

 perfect development of this view of the system of nature ; it 

 will enable us to see with tolerable distinctness the status of 

 man as one of the vessels of life. Even from the sketch now 

 before us, we may draw some curious inferences. It appears 

 that the stirps which terminates in the Primates, is one which 



1 Newman's System of Nature. 



