6 THE DESCEXT OF THE PRIMATES 



genera otherwise widely separated. It is a small 

 mammal and has been excavated in the lower 

 Eocene of the United States, at least its skull, 

 jaws, and teeth. These remains offer certain 

 points of peculiar interest. Cope, to whom we 

 owe the first description of this fossil, gave it the 

 suggestive name of Anaptomorplnos homuncidus. 

 He thereby intended to convey the expression of 

 the curious fact that, with respect to certain 

 peculiarities of its dentition, this small creature 

 reminded him strongly of man and the higher 

 monkeys. 



Anaptomorphus must have been about the size 

 of a squirrel, but whether it had a tail or not we 

 cannot at present say. It had big eyes and was 

 most probably a nocturnal animal of omnivorous 

 habits, whereas its brain capacity exceeded that 

 of any of the lower mammals of corresponding 

 size. There is, however, one genus of living 

 mammals with which its discoverer immediately 

 saw it to be closely related, namely, the rare and 

 quaint spectral Tarsius, of which the natives of 

 Sumatra, Banka, and Borneo stand in suspicious 

 dread because of its weird appearance. Eaffles 

 tells us that when the natives perceive a speci- 

 men on a tree near their rice fields, they aban- 

 don these and plant their rice elsewhere, being 



