74 MAMMALS. 



A monkey's molar tooth was taken from the pliocene beds of Essex, which has been determined 

 to be most closely allied to the Macacus Sinicus (a common species in captivity, whence doubt has 

 been thrown on the authenticity of the fossil, but it is believed by Owen to be perfectly genuine). 



The remains of a monkey of gigantic size (four feet in height) were, discovered in 18:39, 

 Mith other bones, by Dr. Lund, in a bone-cave in limestone in Brazil. Its molar dentition showed 

 it to belong to the platyrrhine family now peculiar to South America ; the New- world monkeys 

 having four more teeth than the Old-world, a supernumcraiy' molar in each side of each jaw. 

 It was described as a new genus under the name of Protopithkcus. This belonged to the pliocene 

 period. 



The lower jaw and teeth of a small quadrumane was discovered by M. Lartet in a miocene bed 

 in the south of France, and described bj^ him and De Blainville. These remains are so closely allied 

 to those of the Gibbons, as scarcely to justifj'^ the generic separation which has been made for the 

 genus to which it belonged under the name of Pliopithecus. 



A portion of a lower jaw with teeth, and the shaft of a humerus of a quadrumanous 

 animal (Dkyoptthecus), equalling the size of those bones in man, have been discovered by M. 

 Fontan of Saint-Graudens, in a marly bed of upper miocene age, foi'mlng the base of the plateau 

 on which that town is built. From this species, certain inferences have been drawn to the effect that 

 this was a transition form between the Chimpanzee and Man, but on this point Professor Owen says : 

 " There is no law of correlation, by which, from the portion with teeth of the Dryopitheccs, can be 

 deduced the shape of the cranial characters determinative of affinity to man. All those characters 

 which do determine the closer resemblance and affinity of the genus Troglodytes to man, and of 

 the genus IIylobates to the tailed monkeys, are at j^resent unknown in respect of the Dryopithecus. 

 The statement by Sir C. Lyell, that the parts of the skeleton of Dryopithecus as yet kirown, 

 ' are sufficient to show that in anatomical structure, as well as stature, it came nearer to man than 

 any quadrumanous species, living or fossil, before known to zoologists,' is without the support of any 

 adequate fact, and in contravention of most of those to be deduced from M. Ijartet's figures of the 

 fossils. Those parts of the Dryopithecus merely show — and the humerus in a striking manner 

 — its nearer approach to the Gibbons ; the most probable conjecture being that it bore to them, in 

 regard to size, the like relations which Dr. Lund's Protopithecus bore to the existing Mycetes." 



Mr. Albert Gaudry conducted some government excavations in Greece, which produced no less 

 than twenty skulls of Monkeys, several jaws, and bones from different parts of the body sufficient 

 to enable him to make a drawing of the whole skeleton. This Grecian Monkey belongs to the genus 

 Mesopithecus. It resembles in its skull the Semnopithecus, but in its limbs the Macacus, and is 

 thus an intermediate form between these genera. Whether it was a traimtional type, as Mr. Gaudry 

 seems to think, is another thing altogether. All that I say is that the two are by no means sj'uonj'mous. 

 Besides these, ten other supposed species have been recorded, but all upon very imperfect materials. 

 Such as they are, two species are from South America, three from Asia, and five from Euroije.* 



With reference io this. Dr. Vogt says :—" Twenty years ago fossil Monkcj^s were unknown, 

 now we have nearly a dozen : who . can tell that we may not in a few years know fifty ? A year 

 ago no intermediate form between Setmiopithecus and Macacus was known : now we possess a whole 

 skeleton : who can assert that in ten, twenty, or fifty years we may not possess intermediate forms 

 between man and ape?"t 



* Voai's " Lootures oa Man." Traii^latoJ by Authropol. Soo. p. 45 1. Longman auJ Co. 18G4. + Unci. loc. cit. 



