MONKEYS. 393 



belong to animals having no close relationship with the walruses. 

 The only undoubted phocine fragment found in any American 

 formation of older date than the Quaternary belongs to a form 

 described from the Miocene of Virginia as Plioca Wymani. In 

 Europe, especially in the Antwerp Basin, remains of the family 

 are abundant, and in living and extinct genera (Phoca, Palaeo- 

 phoca, Callophoca, Gryphoca, Monatherium, Prophoca) extend back 

 through the Pliocene to the later Miocene period. Leith Adams 

 has described a species of Phoca from the Miocene calcareous strata 

 of Gozo, near Malta. 



Extinct Carnivora of TTncertain Position. — Under the order 

 Creodonta Professor Cope has united a number of generalised Euro- 

 pean and American carnivore types, which differ in many essentials — 

 greatly reduced cerebral hemispheres, absence of scapho-lunar bone, 

 ungrooved astragalus — from the true Carnivora, and whose direct 

 affinities are at once with these last, the marsupials and insectivores. 

 They are regarded as the primitive carnivores, inasmuch as from 

 these two at least of the great modern groups — the ^luroidea 

 (cats) and Cynoidea (dogs) — are claimed to be directly derived. 

 Of the four extinct families that are referred here, the Miacida3 

 (Miacis, Dldymictis), Oxyasnidae (Oxyaena, Palseonyctis), Mesony- 

 chidae (Mesonyx), and Hyaenodontidoe (Hyaenodon), the first three 

 are restricted to the Eocene period (beginning with the Lower 

 Eocene), while Hyasnodon is both Upper Eocene and Lower Mio- 

 cene. The Miacidae and Oxyaenidae are considered to be the ances- 

 tral forerunners of the dogs and cats respectively, a union between 

 the latter and the civets being seemingly effected by the genus 

 Proviverra. Here, perhaps, may also be referred the European Arc- 

 tocyon, one of the oldest forms of Tertiary mammals known. 



Primates (Monkeys and Man *). — Naturalists usually recog- 

 nise three distinct groups of the quadrumanous section of the 

 Primates : the monkeys or apes of the New World (Platyrhina), 

 the apes of the Old World (Catarhina), and the lemurs or half- 

 monkeys (Lemuroidea), inhabitants of both continental and insular 

 Asia and Africa. In the broader aspects of their distribution the 

 members of this order may be said to be restricted to a zone 

 included between the thirtieth parallels of north and south lati- 

 tude, although a limited number of forms pass slightly beyond 



* The consideration of man is not entered into in this worli. 

 18 



