580 LAND MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 



was ancestral to any of the existing lemurs, but may have 

 been to the numerous forms of the European upper Eocene. 



The Wasatch genera are known from very fragmentary 

 material, but it suffices to show that some of the genera, 

 at least {e.g. ^Pelycodus), were decidedly more primitive than 

 those of the Bridger. The incisors had already been reduced 

 to I, the well-nigh universal formula among the Primates ; 

 the upper molars were tritubercular, but with a minute fourth 

 cusp beginning to appear, and in the lower molars the anterior 

 triangle was elevated above the heel. The two halves of the 

 lower jaw were separate. 



The Paleocene has yielded nothing that can be positively 

 referred to the Primates, but there was a group of genera {e.g. 

 ^Indrodon), known only from jaws and teeth, which have been 

 variously assigned to the lemurs and the Insectivora and may 

 have belonged to either order, or have represented the transi- 

 tion between them. This very uncertainty is in itself a signifi- 

 cant fact, for it is another of the many examples of the way 

 in which, at that early period, the mammalian orders were so 

 approximated that it is often very difficult to distinguish 

 them. 



It was stated above that the distinction between existing 

 lemurs and anthropoids was a very clear one, but to this 

 statement there is one partial exception. The curious little 

 Tarsier {Tarsius spectrum), an animal about the size of the 

 Grey Squirrel, an inhabitant of the Malay Archipelago, is 

 thus described by Mr. Beddard : ' ' The ears are large and the 

 eyes are extraordinarily developed. The fingers and toes 

 terminate in large, expanded disks and are furnished with 

 flattened nails, except on the second and third toes, which 

 have claws. The tail is longer than the body and tufted at 

 the end. . . . The Tarsiers are nocturnal and particularly 

 arboreal ; they live in pairs, in holes in tree stems and are 

 mainly insectivorous in their food. . . . Like so many 

 Lemurs, this animal is held in superstitious dread, v/hich is 



