ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE OF ANTHROPOID APES. 109 



in a young negro, Papuan and Malay, is iu'leed often 

 flatter and more bevelled than it is in a young 

 gorilla or chimpanzee. 



We must not, however, assume that the two 

 individuals brought into comparison are of precisely 

 the same age, since such a point cannot easily be 

 ascertained, even when subjects for examination are 

 afforded by one of our larger museums. Savages 

 are seldom able to give their precise age, and the 

 attempt to do so often relies on insufficient data. 

 The direct examination of the skull will afford some 

 information on this point; but the conditions of 

 growth in anthropoids are not so well known as to 

 admit of an accurate estimate. We have to rely on 

 the state of the teeth, on the stage at which the 

 development of the bony crests has arrived, etc., in 

 order to form an approximate estimate of the age 

 of the skull. 



On the squamous occipital portion the arrangement 

 of the curved lines which are the boundaries to 

 the attachments of the cervical muscles, is common 

 to men, to anthropoids, and to other apes. Only in- 

 dications of these lines are to be found in the lower 

 order of mammals. In the human skull there is some- 

 times a formation belonging to the squamous occipital 

 portion which has a distinctly pithecoid or ape-like 

 character. This is the occipital swelling we have 

 already described (Torus occipitalis transversus), which 

 may be either enclosed by the two upper curved 

 lines, or lie between these and the central curved 

 lines, or may be altogether in the region of the 



latter. This swelling extends in a gradual manner 

 6 



