1 6 APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS 



Most of the Primates are animals essentially adapted for living in 

 Dis nbu ion warm c ii ma t eS) and are never found in regions which have not at least 

 a hot summer. Some of them are, however, capable of withstanding a considerable 

 amount of winter cold ; and it is no uncommon sight in the outer ranges of the 

 Himalayas to see troops of monkeys leaping from bough to bough of the snow-laden 

 pines. Moreover, two species of monkeys inhabit the elevated regions of Eastern 

 Tibet, where at least part of the winter must be intensely cold. With the excep- 

 tion of the apes found on the Rock of Gibraltar, which must either have reached 

 their present habitation when Spain was united by land with Africa, or have been 

 introduced by man at a later period, none of the Primates are found in Europe ; 

 they occur, however, throughout the warmer regions of the remainder of the globe, 

 with the exception of the Australian region ; but whereas all the apes and monkeys 

 of the Old World belong to two well-marked families, those of the New World rep- 

 resent two other families closely allied to one another, but markedly different from 

 both those of the Old World. The lemurs, as we shall see later on, are without 

 exception Old World forms, and are especially characteristic of Madagascar, 

 although also represented in India and on the continent of Africa, as well as in 

 certain islands. In past times, however, lemurs were distributed over the greater 

 part of the globe ; and monkeys even roamed over the ancient forest-lands of Essex, 

 as is proved by the discovery of a single tooth in the brick earth of Ilford in Essex ; 

 and they were also abundant over the more southern regions of Europe. 



Nearly the whole of the Primates are adapted for a more or less completely 

 arboreal life, most of them being inhabitants of forest regions. Aided by their 

 hand-like feet, all of them are expert climbers, and many, like the Oriental gibbons 

 and the South American spider-monkeys, but rarely leave the trees, leaping from 

 bough to bough, and thus from tree to tree, far above the heads of the travelers 

 below, to whom their presence is made known only by their continual howling or 

 chattering. The climbing powers of the South American monkeys are largely 

 aided by their prehensile tails, which serve the purpose of a fifth limb. Owing to 

 the warmth of the regions in which most of them dwell, no monkeys ever hiber- 

 nate. Contrary, however, to what is often supposed to be the case, several of the 

 smaller species are expert swimmers, and will fearlessly cross comparatively large 

 rivers. 



It is now time to take a glance at some of the more characteristic 

 features which distinguish the order as a whole from other Mammals. 

 In the first place, both the hand and the foot are, as a rule, provided with five 

 digits, although in a few instances the thumb is wanting. Then, again, the hand 

 is always adapted to act as a grasping organ, and, with the single exception of man, 

 the same is the case with the foot, though it has recently been discovered that the 

 foot of the newly-born human infant displays distinct traces of having been 

 originally a grasping organ. In those cases where the hand attains its most per- 

 fect development, the thumb can be opposed to the fingers, but in some of the lower 

 forms this action is only possible in a limited degree. The great toe is, in a similar 

 manner, opposable to the other toes, although in man, as is well shown in our figure 

 of his skeleton, this action has been lost, and the bones of this toe lie parallel to 



