CHAPTER III. 



THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF QUADRUMANA — THEIR HABITS IN THEIR NATIVE HAUNTS — 

 THEIR GREGARIOUS DISPOSITION — DIVISION OP THE QUADRUMANA. 



THE word Quadrumana is formed from two Latin words, quattuor, 

 " four," and inanus, " a hand," and means, therefore, " four- 

 handed." To this order belong all the monkey tribes ; and a 

 comparison of the foot of a monkey with that of a man will indicate 

 the reason why they are called " four-handed," while man is called in 

 scientific language a bimanous (irom the Latin biniis, "two," and mantis, 

 a " hand "), or two-handed animal. In man the upper limbs terminate 

 in a hand consisting of four fingers and a thumb, which thumb is capable 

 of being " opposed " to each of the fingers. By " opposed " is meant 

 that the thumb is so adjusted as to grasp objects between itself and the 

 fingers. This arrangement is extended in the Quadrumana to the hind 

 limbs; the inner or great toe is opposable to the other toes, the hind 

 feet become hands and can grasp objects as easily and firmly as the 

 human hand does. Such a construction enables the animals possess- 

 ing it to climb with ease, and hence we find that the favorite home of 

 this order is in the woods and forests of the warmer regions of the two 

 hemispheres. 



From the very earliest ages the extraordinary resemblance of the 

 monkey tribes to man has attracted the curiosity of mankind. The 

 ancient Egyptians sculptured their forms on their granite monuments, 

 and reverenced some species as gods. The modern Arabs regard them 

 as the progeny of the evil one, for whom nothing is sacred, nothing 

 venerable, who have been cursed since the day when God changed them 

 from man into apes, and who still bear in strange combination the form 

 of the devil and of man. We of the present day look upon them with 

 mixed feelings. The caricature of the human form and human faculties 

 which they exhibit is tolerable to us in the smaller, playful species, 



