472 HUMAN DENTITION. 



dentition shows that Man was, from the beginning, more especially 

 adapted ' to eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. '(1) 



But the Quadrumana are not exclusively frugivorous. Some 

 are known to seek the eggs and callow-brood of birds. The African 

 Baboons pass whole hours in turning up great stones in quest of 

 insects. The young Chimpanzees and Orangs in our menageries 

 manifest no repugnance to cooked meat, and the avidity with 

 which they will pluck and devour a sparrow leads us to suspect that 

 their vegetable diet is occasionally varied by the capture of a 

 live bird. 



The formidable development of the canine teeth in the Orangs 

 and Baboons seems, at the first glance, to relate to the predomi- 

 nance of animal food in their regimen ; but the sexual difference in 

 the development of those teeth might have indicated that they 

 had other subserviences than to the acquisition of daily sustenance, 

 if observation had not shewn them to have been given to the 

 males for the purpose of combat and defence. The molar teeth 

 are those which form always the best and sometimes the sole 

 guides to a knowledge of the diet of a mammiferous animal : 

 and these clearly indicate the frugivorous and mixed regimen of 

 the Quadrumana and Man. (2) 



We have seen that the most striking characteristic of the 

 human dentition is the absence of any disproportionate develop- 

 ment of particular teeth, and the concomitant continuity of the 

 series in both jaws : the more immediate comparison with the 

 Quadrumanous dentition, while it demonstrates the close similarity 

 of the molar teeth, and supports the consequent deduction of an 

 omnivorous diet, brings to light the very interesting difference in 

 the proportions and disposition of the incisive and canine teeth, 

 by which we may appreciate the adaptation of the human denti- 

 tion to Man's peculiar and higher attributes. His reason furnishes 



(1) This is the conclusion to which my friend Prof. Bell has arrived in his 'Physiological 

 Observations on the Natural Food of Man, deduced from the characters of the Teeth.' On the 

 Teeth, 8vo. 1829, p. 33. 



(2) John Hunter in considering the question, " Under what class do the Human Teeth 

 come ?" concludes by stating, "He, (Man) ought, therefore, to be considered as a compound, 

 fitted equally to live upon flesh and upon vegetables." Nat. Hist, of Human Teeth, 4to. 1771, 

 p. 120. 



