534 



THE CHANGING WORLD 



Changes and advances in many directions came thick and fast, 

 once the mammaUan idea was introduced. Out of all the emerging 

 orders of mammals it was probably the insedivores that became the 

 forerunners of the primates to which man belongs. These lowly 



creatures, of which the shrews, 

 moles, and the European 

 hedgehog are living representa- 

 tives, somehow kept within 

 the broad highway of struc- 

 tural generalization, not being 

 lured into blind alleys of spe- 

 cialization as was the fate of 

 the hoofed ungulates, bats, and 

 leviathanlike whales. Cer- 

 tain of these insectivores, the 

 tree shrews, quite unlike their 

 modern burrowing cousins, the 

 moles, took to arboreal life, 

 thus gaining shelter and escap- 

 ing in some degree from their 

 terrestrial enemies. Accord- 

 ing to certain biologists, they 

 initiated the Grand Order of 

 the Primates, from which man 

 has finally emerged. 



So it came about that all 

 along the long trail "from 

 Ameba to man" there were 

 innumerable casualties. Ex- 

 ploring parties left the main 

 line. Many were lost, but some have kept on in diverging pathways 

 until today, although separated from the main highway that has led 

 up to man. The final episode in the ascent of man concerns the 

 story of the primates. 



Our Primate Cousins 



Since man is the only animal that can wTite a book, we find the 

 mammalian Order to which man belongs naively designated as 

 Primates, or the first. If a horse could make a classification of 

 mammals, no doubt the Ungulates would be placed first, for they 



American Museum of Natural History 



Tupaia, the tree shrew, that discovered 

 the possibilities of tree hfe and thus became 

 the probable forerunner of our arboreal 

 ancestors. 



