386 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAJ. 



between the eyes; it also has a very thin 

 upper lip and a partly everted lower 

 lip; so that this mingling of human 

 and apelike characters fully carries out 

 the "missing link" idea which is so 

 unmistakably indicated in the exces- 

 sively low forehead and high brow 

 ridges of this celeln-ated relic of a pre- 

 human stage. 



An interesting and grotesque cari- 

 cature of certain human styles of nose 

 is seen in two rh)seiy related genera of 

 Asiatic monkeys, the "retrousse-nosed 

 monkey" {Rliino pith ecus) and the "pro- 

 boscis monkey" (Nasalis). The fornicr 

 has the nose turned up at the tip and 

 the nostrils facing forward, somewhat 

 after the manner of a human lu'Tiis. 

 while the male proboscis monkey, as its 

 name indicates, has its nose produced 

 into a long downwardly directed tid)e 

 with the nostrils facing downward. In 

 the mandrill the inflated nose is made 

 more striking to the eye by the addi- 

 tion of intensely blue and red pig- 

 ments. 



It has long l)een suspected that these 

 variations of the nose in the higher 

 Primates, including man, may have 

 been brought about through sexual se- 

 lection and that the form of nose has 

 been determined by its decorative value, 

 in accordance with the varied standards 

 of beauty in the different races. Cer- 

 tain modern investigators, however, 

 deny the potency of sexual selection to 

 produce such results. Those who pre- 

 fer to believe that differences in form 

 are associated with differences in habit 

 would perhaps favor the suggestion ^ 

 that the downwardly pointing and 

 hooded nostrils of man are primarily 

 adapted to hunting habits and an up- 

 right gait, while the forwardly facing 

 and open nostrils of the apes were 

 adapted to frugivorous habits and a 



' Dr. George F. Stevens (in litteris). 



stooping gait. It may be also that the 

 covered nostrils were better adapted for 

 the rigorous, arid climate of the open 

 plains, which according to my own view 

 constituted the earliest habitat of men 

 after they had abandoned their ances- 

 tral home in the forests. 



Passing to a consideration of the 

 origin of the human eyes, we find in the 

 Primates many intergradations from 

 the condition where the eyes are more 

 lateral in position, to the anthropoid 

 and human condition, in which the eyes 

 are shifted together near the mid-line 

 in front and can both be focused on an 

 ohject near by in front of the face. This 

 ]u-ocess of bringing the opposite eyes 

 near each other has been carried even 

 further in the orang-utan than in man, 

 so that tlie bony partition between the 

 e\es in tbe (U'ang is excessively narrow. 



The eyes of all the anthropoids are 

 very human in character, but especially 

 those of tlie young gorilla. The back of 

 the eye of the chimpanzee as viewed 

 through an ophthalmoscope,^ is ex- 

 triMui'ly liunum in appearance, much 

 more than that of the orang, so that 

 this human character of the chimpan- 

 zee eye extends even to the arrangement 

 of the blood vessels and the appearance 

 of the pigmented areas. 



As ever}' one knows, the forehead of 

 adult male apes is very low as compared 

 with that of normal men; but the 

 young, both of men and apes, have a 

 swelling forehead. The baby orang- 

 utan shows the domelike forehead of 

 the human infant, and the young chim- 

 panzee^ has an exceedingly large fore- 

 head much like that of a young child. 

 The inference has accordingly been 

 drawn by some authors that the com- 

 mon ancestor of apes and men did not 



" According to the beautiful colored plates of 

 I)r. Lindsey Johnson. The gorilla is not figured 

 among them. 



2 See illustration from photograph on p. 377. 



