CHAPTER II 

 APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS ORDER PRIMATES 



MAN-LIKE APES 

 Family SlMIlD^ 



EVERYBODY knows what an ape or a monkey is, and the proverb " mischievous 

 as a monkey ' ' reveals the estimation in which the latter animals are commonly held. 

 The more or less human-like form, the frequent tendency to assume an upright posi- 

 tion, coupled with their hand-like feet, would be amply sufficient to distinguish the 

 group to which these animals belong from all others, were it not for the circum- 

 stance that there are the less well-known creatures termed Lemurs, which, while 

 evidently related to monkeys, yet differ from them in so many respects as to 

 render it almost or quite impossible to give any characteristics which will absolutely 

 distinguish the order to which they belong from all others. This is, however, 

 a difficulty with which the zoologist has often to put up with, and to make the 

 best of. 



That the higher apes are closely related in their bodily structure to man is ob- 

 vious to all, and it is a fact that the differences between some of these apes and man 

 are, from a purely anatomical point of view, of far less importance than those by 

 which the lower monkeys are separated from the higher apes. It has, indeed, been 

 attempted to show that apes and monkeys are sharply distinguished from man by 

 the circumstance that while man is two-handed, apes and monkeys are four-handed. 

 The difference between the foot of one of the larger apes and that of man is, how- 

 ever, merely one of degree, and is much less than that between the apes and the 

 lowest representatives of the order, as is well shown in the accompanying illustration, 

 which illustrates the various forms assumed by the hand and foot of these animals. 



Although the larger apes are those which come nearest to man in their general 

 organization, yet the strong ridges on the skulls of the adults, and the consequent 

 overhanging and prominent eyebrows, give them an expression which, at the best, 

 is but a gross caricature of the human countenance. It is, however, in the young of 

 these animals, where the ridges on the skull are much less developed, and the tusks 

 or canine teeth of the males have not attained the dimensions which they reach in 

 the adult state, that we find a much more human-like cast of expression. Moreover, 

 some of the smaller apes, in which the great ridges on the skull are never devel- 

 oped, approach much more nearly in the shape of their skulls to the human type. 

 The larger apes are, indeed, repulsive animals in the adult condition ; and it is 

 usually only the smaller kinds of monkeys which are kept as pets. 

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