236 Lloyd's natural history. 



The above tables show that during the Eocene epoch of 

 the Tertiary Period the Lemui-oidea were confined to the 

 Palaearctic and Nearctic Regions ; and, if the geological record 

 were more perfect, we should probably find that they were 

 distributed across the greater part of the Northern Hemis- 

 phere, which at that period was sub-tropical in climate. Out- 

 side these two regions no Lemuroid remains have been found 

 after the close of the Eocene (with the exception of the solitary 

 Lower Miocene genus Laopithecus) till the Recent Period, when 

 the superficial deposits of Madagascar have yielded the sub-fossil 

 Megaladapis Madagascar iensis and a large undescribed species 

 (probably of a new genus) of Lemuridce^ both of which may 

 have been living in the historic period. At the present day 

 Lemuroids are unknown in either the Palaearctic or Nearctic 

 Regions, and, with the exception of four species, none are now 

 found outside the Ethiopian Region. 



The Anthropoidea^ on the other hand, first appear in the 

 Neotropical Region, in the upper Eocene, but the age of the 

 Santa Cruz formation, in which the remains occur, has not yet 

 been settled with certainty. In the Eastern Hemisphere they 

 appear in the Mid-Miocene, and continue through the Pliocene, 

 the Pleistocene and Recent deposits. As yet no remains have 

 been found in the Nearctic Region, where Lemuroid remains 

 occur so abundantly. 



