MAMMALIA 379 



wanting, indicating a low order of intelligence. " The long and 

 powerful canine teeth are alone sufficient to proclaim the savage 

 wild beast." The gorilla is not teachable like the chimpanzee, 

 but is sulky and ferocious. The gorilla is the only ape that walks 

 erect. Its arms are relatively short and its legs long. Its 

 hands reach a little below the knees when standing erect. It 

 has big feet and a pronounced heel. The digits are webbed.^ 

 The brain is larger than that of the chimpanzee, but so is the 

 body. The great similarity of structure to that of the human 

 body is due largely to the plantigrade walk and the terrestrial 

 life. The gorilla is more primitive than the chimpanzee and, 

 therefore, nearer to the common ancestral stock. It is found in 

 a small area in West Africa on the equator, and between the 

 Gaboon and Congo Rivers. Hornaday declares that if the head 

 of a chimpanzee were placed on the shoulders of a gorilla, we 

 should have the " missing link," and that if the missing link 

 is ever found, it will be in the " Tertiary deposits of the fertile 

 uplands that lie between the gloomy equatorial forests of the 

 black apes and the bushmen of South Africa." 



Man. — Fossil remains of a man-like ape, Anthropopithe'cus 

 erectus, have been fomid in the upper Pliocene of Java. It is 

 generally thought that these fragments belong to an exceed- 

 ingly large gibbon-like animal having an enormous cranial 

 cavity and a brain nearly equal in size to that of some of the 

 savage races of man to-day. There is no doubt that man 

 lived on the earth at the beginning of the Pleistocene times, 

 and it is thought by many anthropologists that he lived in the 

 latter part of the Tertiary Period, though this has not been 

 satisfactorily proved. 



The family Hominidce contains but a single genus. Homo, 

 and one species, H. sapiens. The different varieties of this 

 species are now generally classified in three great groups: 

 the Ethiopian, of Africa; the Mongolian, of Asia; and the Cau- 

 casian, of Europe. Man is distinguished from other primates 

 by a less development of hair on the body, by the erect walk, 

 and by the consequent modification of the hind limbs and feet 

 (he is a true biped). The face does not project so much as 

 that of the anthropoid apes. The skull of man is a smooth, 

 1 Beddard, p. 572. 



