THE DESCENT OF THE PRIMATES 7 



firmly convinced that misfortune would be in 

 store for them or their families if they did not do 

 so. Cuming, who has observed live Tarsius in the 

 Philippines, praises its particular cleanliness, and 

 remarks that when it is disturbed in its cage, it 

 clenches its teeth together and simultaneously 

 contracts its facial muscles in the same way as a 

 monkey would do. Certain peculiarities in the 

 structure of its legs enable it to accomplish long 

 jumps. In taking its food it sits down on its 

 hind-quarters, holding the morsel in its forepaws. 

 We have reason to believe that this description 

 of the habits and aspect of Tarsius would, to a 

 great extent, apply to the fossil genus Anapto- 

 morphus. And we will now further inquire in 

 what respect these two isolated genera might 

 prove useful to us in the determination of certain 

 points of mammalian affinities. I hope to be 

 able to make it clear to you that under certain 

 circumstances the value of such outlying and ap- 

 parently aberrant forms, imperfect and few in 

 number as their remains may be, can become 

 quite as decisive to us for the determination of 

 certain points of mammalian descent, as can, on 

 another occasion, a great number of fossil remains, 

 such as those of the slow gradation by which in 

 the successive Tertiary deposits the gulf between, 



