86 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



quadrupeds in the fact that they rest the weight of the 

 forepart of the body not upon the palms of their hands 

 but upon their flexed fingers, a souvenir of the grasping 

 action of the hand during brachiation. Usually the chim- 

 panzees when on the ground stay near the forests, but 

 explorers have sometimes seen them crossing wide areas of 

 savannah country in going from one patch of forest to 

 another. The finding of the fossil skull named Australo- 

 pithecus in a region hundreds of miles south of the forest- 

 Hving anthropoids, in a formation of which the hthologic 

 characters indicate open country for long periods, supports 

 Dart's view that the most man-Hke known member of the 

 higher ape stock was already in course of invading the 

 open country as did the ancestors of man. 



We are not yet sure whether man branched off before or 

 after the gorilla separated from the common stock. The 

 late Professor G. Schwalbe after a most thorough analysis 

 concluded that man branched off from the fork that also 

 gave rise to the chimpanzee. The modern old male gorilla 

 has become extremely un-manhke in its excessive body 

 size, huge baboon-Hke muzzle and teeth and certain other 

 features. All these characters, however, may have been 

 rapidly acquired after the gorilla separated from the main 

 stock. The blood tests, the brain structure, the anatomy 

 of the hands and feet and many other anatomical characters 

 indicate that the relationship between gorilla and man is far 

 closer than was formerly suspected. The ape-like jaw of the 

 Piltdown skull indicates that even as late as early Pleistocene 

 times there were some human beings with strongly ape-like 

 characters of the jaw and teeth. 



The almost human hand, foot and brain of the gorilla 

 suggest that a secondarily^ quadrupedal, ground-living phase 

 may have succeeded the purely erect arboreal stage and pre- 

 ceded the erect ground-walking stage, notwithstanding the 

 initial mechanical disadvantages encountered by a heavy- 

 chested form in assuming the erect posture (Morton). 

 Even now in spite of his gigantism or of his short hind legs, 

 the young gorilla has no difficulty in standing upright or in 

 carrying boxes with his forearms while walking in the erect 

 position. The quadrupedal gait recorded by Hrdlicka in 



