PREVIOUS TO THE LAST GEOLOGICAL REVOLUTION. 315 



and re-appearance of an animal family vrould be. I there- 

 fore abstain for the present from offering any opinion w^hat- 

 ever on this subject ; although I must confess that this con- 

 stant failure of all my efforts to find in the soil of the caves 

 even a trace of any single individual of this family, has 

 already long excited my wonder ; the rather, because the 

 family of bats is now, next to the rodents and Ferce, the 

 most abundant in species within this district ; and, as I have 

 elsewhere shown, claims the first place on the list of those 

 animals which, in the present day, make caverns their resi- 

 dence. 



Fourth Order, QUADRUMANA, 

 Family of Apes, (Simiae.) 



If my attempts to discover any of the preceding family 

 (Bats), have hitherto been fruitless, so have they been re- 

 warded with most unexpected success, in the case of the 

 family I next proceed to consider. I am at length enabled 

 to solve the important question as to the existence of the 

 highest class of mammals in those ancient times to which 

 these fossils belong ; a question which has as yet been unan- 

 swered, or which most philosophers have thought right to 

 answer in the negative. It is certain this family was then in 

 existence ; and the first animal of the class recovered is of 

 gigantic size, a character belonging to the organization 

 of the period. It considerably exceeds the largest indivi- 

 duals of the orang-outang, or Chimpanzee, yet seen ; from 

 which also, as well as from the long-armed apes {Hylohates), 

 it is generically distinct. As it equally differs from the apes 

 now living here, I would place it for the present in a genus 

 of its own, for which I propose the name Protopithecus ; 

 with the specific distinction Prot. brasiliensis, from the quar- 

 ter where the first representative of this family saw the light 

 of day. I cannot omit this opportunity of recording a tra- 

 dition very general over a considerable extent of the interior 

 highlands, especially in the northern and western portions of 

 the province of St. Paul, and the Sertao of St. Francisco. 

 According to this current report, the district here mentioned 

 is even yet inhabited by a very large ape, to which the In- 

 dians (from whom the report comes), have given the name 

 of Caypore, which signifies the dweller in the wood. The 

 Caypore is said to be as big as a man, and covered over its 

 entire body and a portion of its face with very long curly 

 hair. Its colour is brown, with the exception of a white 



Vol IV.— No. 43. n. s. 2 q 



