ORDER PRIMATES. 



LEMURS, MONKEYS AND APES. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Of the varied forms of animal life that people the globe, those 

 that possess a back-bone and two pairs of limbs (the Ver- 

 tebrata) are considered the highest in the scale. Of the 

 Verfebrata, those are held to be of superior organisation which 

 possess warm red blood and suckle their young with milk from 

 the breast {i.e., Mammalia). Our present volume deals with 

 the highest and most specialised group of the Mammalia, and, 

 therefore, of the whole Animal Kingdom. 



Man, in respect of his mental endowments, stands alone and 

 unapproachable among living creatures. Considered as to his 

 "place in nature," however, he must be described as an erect- 

 walking Mammal, possessing anterior extremities developed 

 into hands of great perfection, for exclusive use as tactile and 

 grasping organs, and posterior limbs, on which his body is 

 perfectly balanced and entirely supported, exclusively devoted 

 to locomotion, as weU as highly specialised cerebral characters. 

 These attributes in part constitute the standard by which we 

 estimate superiority in animal structure, and fitness of adapta- 

 tion. 



Notwithstanding the numerous varieties and races of man- 

 ?. — V. I B 



