THE LAST STEPS IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN. 671 



touchiujj; by this the primates luaj' be subdivided also, but into three 

 groups, viz: Man, in which tiie thumb is opposabU^ only in the ui)per 

 extremities; the monkeys, in which it is opposable in all of the extremi- 

 ties, and the impertect primates in which the adaptation may be either 

 less apparent, or more marked, in the lower extremities than in the 

 upper. Other characters could be pointed out, for the most part show- 

 ing grades in the ascending series of the primates; but the aboee are 

 sufficient for our purpose. 



To so consider the primates is perhaps to prejudiceiu a measure the re- 

 sult sought. As soon as one introduces into the series a progressive de- 

 velopment of characters,and divides the i)rimates into superior, medium, 

 and inferior, one is held to be indulgent toward the characters which 

 appear to be obscure or lacking among the lowest. When we admit 

 that the lower prin)ates are but the commencement of the series, the 

 passage from the other orders to that of the primates is but a step. 

 Now the lemurs will supply us with the greater part of the imperfect 

 primates to which we have alluded. 



The lemurs embrace, or should embrace, three groups of animals: 

 the galeopitheci, the cheiromys, and the lemu s properly so called. 



The galeopitheci, or tlying cats (from yaXij cat and ixUhixo-^ monkey) 

 inhabit the Sunda, Molucca, and Philippine islands. They exemplify 

 the difficulty of fixing in our (dassification certain groups characterized 

 as paradoxical, and for the reason that they are groui)S of transition, 

 having the right really to be found in many groups. By Oken they 

 have been classed with the rodents, by fitienue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire 

 with the carnivora, by Cuvier with the bats, by Linujeus, Broca, Brehm, 

 Huxley (in 1862), and Vogt, with the lemurs, and by Huxley (in 1872), 

 with the insectivora. 



That which permits of their being called lemurs is their general 

 appearance and their arboreal and nocturnal habits. Most of their 

 characters however oppose it. They have claws on all the fingers, 

 and the thumb is not opposable, hence they are not primates, not even 

 incipient. They possess that which Mj-. Huxley calls a patiajlum^ that 

 is, a fold of skin on the sides of the body extending along the outtside 

 of the lower limbs and along the outside ol' the Mj)per limi)s, encircling 

 the tail and prolonged betwei'u the fingers of normal length. It is the 

 organ exhibited among the dying marsui)ials called jjctaurites, and 

 which modified recalls the Jurassic pterosaurians on the one hand, the 

 cheiroptera and particularly the pteropus on the other, without agree- 

 ing among the last, however, with the wing of a bird. 



This patafjium has caused the galeopitheci to be classed with the 

 cheiroptera. That which causes them to be placed among the insect- 

 ivora by Professor Huxley is their dentition, the conformation of their 

 skull, and their brain. In short, we discard them from the lemurs and 

 consequently from tlu^ primates. 



The cheiromys embraces but one genus, the aye-aye of Madagascar. 



