26 



APES AND MONKEYS. 



these that come under consideration here in 

 the first instance. The resemblances are more 

 prominent in the young, the differences in the 

 adult. I was drawing a mature embryo of the 

 black ape (Cynocephalus (Cynopithccus) niger), 

 when a lady, who had shortly before pre- 

 sented her husband with a son, stepped in. 

 "Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "exactly 

 the portrait of my little Jean Jacques." 



The rounded head with generally flat nose 

 and nostrils placed very near each other, the 

 well-formed neck, the form of the trunk, and 

 above all the entire freedom of the limbs 

 mark the external resemblance to man, a 

 resemblance, however, which is, to be sure, a 

 good deal diminished in most of the Simiae 

 by the existence of a longer or shorter tail. 

 But we hasten to add that in the anthropoid 

 apes and some other species, as the Barbary 

 ape, this appendage is altogether wanting. 

 A less striking difference is presented by the 

 covering of hair, which in most of the Simiae 

 is complete, and in some even forms a kind 

 of woolly fur. This distinction cannot indeed 

 be called an absolute one, for between the 

 scanty hair-covering of some of the Simiae 

 and the abundant hair-covering of many 

 races of man it is just as impossible to draw 

 a sharp boundary line as it is to indicate any 

 such line of demarcation with respect to the 

 distribution and direction of the hair on 

 certain parts of the body. In man the front 

 of the body is much more hairy than the 

 back, which must probably be regarded as 

 a consequence of the usual attitude of man, 

 since it is always those parts which are most 

 in need of protection that are most abun- 

 dantly covered with hair. The ape or 

 monkey, which holds itself erect only in 

 exceptional cases, exposes the back parts to 

 the changes of the weather, and these accord- 

 ingly are the more plentifully covered with 

 hair; the naked savage, on the other hand, 

 standing erect exposes the crown of the head 

 and the front more than any other parts, and 

 hence has these parts most abundantly 



supplied with hair. With respect to the 

 direction of the hair the anthropoid apes 

 agree with man in having the hair on the 

 fore-arm directed backwards towards the 

 elbow, while the other Simise and other mam- 

 mals generally have the hair on the corres- 

 ponding parts directed downwards. 



Let us now consider more closely the 

 structure of the skeleton, and first that of 

 the skull. 



The skull of the very young in all mam- 

 mals including man is characterized by the 

 predominance of the cranial over the facial 

 region, the latter of which has its form and 

 proportions determined chiefly by the de- 

 velopment of the jaws. In man as in the 

 Simiae the jaws grow gradually forwards with 

 advancing years in consequence of the growth 

 of the teeth ; but while even in those races of 

 man which have teeth slanting forwards (the 

 Prognathi) this protrusion is confined within 

 narrow limits, in the Simiae, and especially 

 in the low terrestrial forms, the Cynomorphae, 

 it is so considerable that we have here 

 similar relations to what we find in the 

 Carnivora, the cranial region lying for the 

 most part not above but behind the facial. 

 But in this as in many other cases the 

 gradual development of this feature can be 

 considered under three aspects, namely, as 

 affected by age, by sex, and by the position 

 in the scale of being. In the female sex the 

 jaws and the muscles moving them are less de- 

 veloped than in the male; in the higher Simiae 

 the jaws protrude less than in the lower. 

 With the development of the jaws and their 

 muscles is connected in the most intimate 

 manner that of the surfaces, crests, and 

 ridges of the skull to which the muscles are 

 attached; and considering the development 

 of these crests and ridges under the three 

 aspects just mentioned, we may observe that 

 in the young and in females they are often 

 scarcely more prominent than in man while 

 in the males of many species they are not less 

 developed than in the heavy-armed Carnivora. 



