4 Memoir iipoii the Apes with mperftct Hands. 



Reaumur, where M. Brisson saw it: it was an exact coun" 

 terpart of the species which this aaturaUst describes by the 

 naiTie oi s'utiia hclztlut. 



Buffon, when wriiing, some years afterwards, the last 

 volume of his History of Animals, had before him only a 

 single ape with four fingers, the coaita, which we have al- 

 ready mentioned : he applied to it all the descriptions of the 

 authors who had spoken of apes deprived of one toe in the 

 tore feel; and from this moment the species of Brisson, al- 

 though nominally comprised in this work, was suppressed : 

 two other apes are in the same situation ; the ape of Brown, 

 with brown hair, and the chamek, in which we find the 

 root of a toe, and of which there is a detailed description 

 b\- Buftbn himself. 



Linnajus was one of the first to adopt these reductions, 

 in which he was followed by all the naturalists : thinking 

 the name of hdzcliit to have no meaning, he transferred the 

 name of a jumping ape, the guariba of Marcgrave, to it. 



Thus these difl'crent apes had been regarded as so many 

 individual varieties, and it must be confessed that it was 

 scarcely possible to form any other opinion at that lime : 

 we are at present in a situation of retracing these first 

 views. Time, in making us acquainted with a greater num- 

 ber of individuals of each of these apes, showing them by 

 fixed and immutable traits, and furnishing us with the means 

 of judging of them comparatively, admits of our giving here 

 a more rigorous determination. 



As these four apes are not only analogous by the want of 

 the finger, but as they also resemble each other, besides, by 

 the strange proportions of their bodies and by the form of 

 the head, I think we should point out their degree of affinity 

 by separating th'^n from the other apes with the prehensile 

 tail, and classing tliem under the same generic denomina- 

 tion : 1 have given the name of ateles to this small f;imily, 

 a dcuomi nation proper for describing the imperfection of 

 their handff. 



These apes are so remarkable on account of the dispropor- 

 tion between their limbs and their bodies, that some of them 

 have rcpcived the ncime of spider apes. The orangs alone have 



longer 



