THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE. 



I. Memoir upon the Apes iv'ith imperfect Hands, or the 

 Atcles. By Geoffroy St. Hilaire *. 



wuR menagerie at Paris has lately acquired two apes 

 without thumbs on the fore paws : hitherto one species 

 only, remarkable for this singularity, has been recognised, 

 viz. the coaita of Buffon, or the sitn'm paniscus of Linnaeus : 

 it is an ape from America; its hair is entirely black, and it 

 passes from branch to branch by using the extremity of its 

 tail. Our two new apes resemble the coaita in the propor- 

 tions of their bodies, by their slender shape, their spider- 

 like limbs, and particularly by their long tail ; but they 

 differ from the coaita in the colour of the belly, which in 

 the former is of a dirty white. If they are of a small size. 

 It is only because they are not full grown ; which we may 

 judge from the circumstance of the canine teeth having 

 scarcely yet made their appearance out of the alveoli, and 

 from their skin being shaggy, and wanting equality and 

 smoothness. 



Nevertheless these cirjcumstances do not induce us to re- 

 gard them as young ones of the simia paniscus j because, 

 on the one hand, we have seen a small individual of that 

 species entirely similar to its father and mother ; and, on the 

 other hand, we have found that this species has already ap- 

 pwired in Europe, and has been described in its perfect state. 



An adult ape, without thumbs to its hands, having a 

 whitish belly, was publicly exhibited, in 1750, by the name 

 of belzehut : after its death it passed into the cabinet of 



• From Aimaks du Museum d'llistoire Naturelk, lome vii. 



Vol. 27. No. 105. Ja«. 1 807. A 2 Reaumur, 



