Smith: Man's Pedigree 



379 



SECOND STAGE OF THE HISTORY. 



Langur or Hanuman {Pygathrix etitellus = Semno bithecus entellus), of southeastern Asia. "In 

 the remote Oligocene, a catarrhine ape, nearly akin to the ancestors of the Indian sacred 

 monkej', Semnopithecus, became definitely specialized in structure in adaptation for the 

 assumption of the erect attitude." The second stage, as we ascend man's family tree, 

 must have somewhat resembled this langur monkey, then, and it was at that stage that the 

 specialization began which led man to diverge from all his relatives of the tree-tops. Photo- 

 graph from the American Museum of Natural History, New York. (Fig. 1.) 



movement that necessitates an efficient 

 motor cortex to control and coordinate 

 such actions as an arboreal mode of life 

 demands (and secures, by the survival 

 only of those so fitted) and also a well- 

 developed muscular sensibility to enable 

 such acts to be carried out with pre- 

 cision and quickness. In the struggle 

 for existence, therefore, all arboreal 

 mammals, such as the tree shrews, 

 suffer a marked diminution of their 

 olfactory apparatus and develop a con- 

 siderable neopallium in which relatively 

 large areas are given up to visual, 



tactile, acoustic, kinaesthetic, and 

 motor functions, as well as to the pur- 

 pose of providing a mechanism for 

 mutually blending in consciousness the 

 effects of the impressions pouring in 

 through the avenues of these senses. 



Thus a more equable balance of the 

 representation of the senses is brought 

 about in the brain of the arboreal 

 animal, and its mode of life encourages 

 and makes indispensable the acquisition 

 of agility. Moreover, these modifica- 

 tions do not interfere wath the primitive 

 characters of limb and body. These 



