284 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



we may say — a species assigned to a new genus Eoan- 

 thropus by Smith Woodward, which is grouped with the 

 genus Homo and the ill-defined genus Pithecanthropus, 

 to form the family Hominidae ; just as the genera Gorilla, 

 Anthropopithecus (chimpanzee), Simla (orang), and 

 Hylobates (gibbon) are grouped together to form the 

 family Simiidae. In Eoanthropus we have in our hands, 

 at last, the much-talked-of " missing link " — the link ob- 

 viously connecting man, the genus Homo, with the apes. 



The immense importance of the discovery of the jaw of 

 Eoanthropus by Mr. Dawson, and of the clear perception 

 of its distinctive features by Dr. Smith Woodward, is not, 

 as yet, sufficiently recognized. The Piltdown jaw is the 

 most startling and significant fossil bone that has ever been 

 brought to light. The Neandermen and the Java skull-top 

 are simply commonplace and insignificant in comparison 

 with it. " What leads you to say that ? " I may be asked. 

 I say so because this jaw and the incomplete skull found 

 with it (Fig. 29) really and in simple fact furnish a link — 

 a form intermediate between the man and the ape. Some 

 fragments of the brain-case were found close to the jaw, 

 indicating a fairly round, very thick-walled brain-case, 

 holding a brain of about i 100 units capacity — very small 

 for a man, very large for an ape. It is in the highest 

 degree probable that the brain-case and the jaw belong 

 to the same individual. If we were to put the brain-case 

 aside as not certainly belonging to the same individual, 

 we should guess that the owner of the jaw might have 

 had a brain of about this size — intermediate between that 

 of the larger apes and the living races of men.^ 



^ The recent discovery by Mr. Dawson of fragments of a second 

 skull of the same character as the first and at the same spot justifies 

 a certain amount of hesitation in concluding that the lower jaw and 

 the fragments of the first found skull belong to one individual. 



