278 CALIFORNIA MAMMADS. 



Order Primates. 



Inner digit of hand, and in some families the inner digit 

 of foot, opposable to the other digits ; femur and humerus fully 

 exserted ; clavicles present ; orbits encircled by bone and directed 

 forward. 



Family Hominidse. (Man.) 



Body erect; inner digit of foot not opposable to the other 

 digits; five digits on each limb; cranium large; cerebral hemi- 

 spheres of brain very large ; canine teeth but moderately develop- 

 ed; tooth row without gap; no tail vertebrae; hair developed only 

 on special areas; ears rounded, with a soft dependent lobule. 



If the same rules of classification be applied to Man that are 

 applied in the lower orders he must be included in the Primates 

 wnth monkeys, apes, etc., but placed in a family separated from 

 them by characters that, taken together, show a higher organiza- 

 tion. "The essential attributes which distinguish Man and give 

 him a perfectly isolated position among living creatures are not 

 to be found in his bodily structure." They are mental, not physi- 

 cal, and zoological classification is based only on physical charac- 

 ters. 



Using terms similar to those used in preceding families we 

 may say that the Hominid'^ are distributed over all parts of the 

 land surfaces of the earth; they are plantigrade; terrestrial; diur- 

 nal and crepuscular; omnivorous; more or less gregarious; the 

 adult males differ somewhat from the females ; the immature are 

 similar to the female; mammae two, pectoral; there are usually 

 but one young at a birth, occasionally two, rarely more; the young 

 develope slowly. 



The Hominid?^ contains but one genus, which is considered 

 by most zoologists to be composed of a single species, divided in 

 several races (technically subspecies) which blend so thoroughly 

 at one point or another as not to be separable into distinct species. 

 These races vary greatly in physical and mental qualities. 



