214 



ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



race of mammals. I believe that these controllmg causes have been sub- 

 stantially the same in the lower animals as in man and their methods 

 and routes of dispersal largely identical.*'' 



PRIMATES 



We have seen that the dispersal center of jnan is in central Asia; that, 

 in the present distribution, the survivors of the earliest cycle are found 



Fig. 7. — Dispersal of the Primates 



The marginal position of the modern lemurs, the jjrogressive disappearance of the order 

 from the more central regions which it formerly inhabited are clearly shown. 



in Africa, peninsular India, the East Indies and Australia; that the 

 populating of the New World belongs to a later cycle of distribution, 

 and we have no good evidence that the earlier cycle ever reached it ; that 

 the dominant migration in the Old World has been east and west, prog- 

 ress to the south being hindered by the transverse mountain system to 

 the south of which more primitive types long survived, while in the New 

 World the dominant line of migration has been to the southward from 

 Alaska, and eastward migration has been slower. 



■•" One notes, too, the same fallacy in interpreting the data ; some authors are disposed 

 to place the center of dispersal of European races or lauijuages in western Europe or in 

 northern Africa because they find there the most primitive surviving races or languages. 



