MAN AND HIS STRUCTURAL AFFINITIES. 429 

 MAN AND HIS STEUCTUKAL AFFINITIES. 1 



By A. K. GROTE, A. M. 



AN average coroner's jury might sit on the skeleton of an anthro- 

 poid ape and return a verdict that the deceased came to his death 

 at the hands of parties unknown, with the sublime consciousness of 

 having performed their duty and earned their fees. The suspicions of 

 the more intelligent jurymen might easily be allayed by the common 

 conception of what the word " monstrosity " will cover, and the simi- 

 larity is indeed so great that I see no reason why the verdict should not 

 be unanimous. 



The gorilla has no more tail than a professor, while the knowledge 

 that monkeys have tails, and the idea that these external appendages 

 are a badge of general monkeyhood, are deeply rooted in the popular 

 mind. But the apes are as tailless as man is, and no more so. I might 

 say even less so, for the gorilla seems to have one caudal vertebra less 

 than man ; but we must give more weight to the head than the tail in 

 matters of classification. In this world heads win throughout the game 

 of life. Certainly, the bones of a gorilla, for instance, may be readily dis- 

 tinguished from those of a man, but certain bones in woman differ also 

 slightly from the corresponding ones in man, and it is a recorded fact 

 that juries have in this way mistaken the sex of the human subject 

 of their deliberations. In England, in 1839, a double jury sat on the 

 skeleton of a woman accidentally found, and upon which a man had been 

 arrested for the supposed murder of his brother, for whose remains the 

 bones had been mistaken. Their real nature fortunately transpired be- 

 fore a verdict was rendered. It is evident, however, that the bones of 

 extinct animals have been mistaken for human remains, and so have in- 

 spired accounts of prehistoric giants ; while it is certain that the bones 

 of fossil mammalia have been revered as relics in Europe during the 

 middle ages, and even up to the time of Cuvier. The correct determi- 

 nation of bones is, indeed, a more difficult matter than may be supposed 

 from the readiness with which naturalists sometimes deal with the sub- 

 ject. A great deal depends on the state of preservation of the bone ; 

 and, again, what particular bone it is. Certain single bones, as the 

 tooth, or one of the bones of the feet or hands, are much more decisive 

 in their character than the ribs or vertebrae. The structure of the teeth 

 shows a relation to the character and consistency of the food, and there 

 is no doubt that, so long as the lion has his present dentition, and while 

 his appetite remains, he will always lie down with the lamb inside of 

 him. In land-animals the bones of the limbs have more play in their 

 sockets than in air or water animals, because flexibility is necessary to 



1 From a lecture delivered before the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, March 9, 



1878. 



