4G MAMMALIA. 



ORDER II. 



QUADRUMANA. 



Independently of the anatomical details which distinguish it from man, 

 and which have been given, this family differs from our species in a very 

 remarkable way. All the animals belonging to it have the toes of the 

 hind feet free and opposable to the others, and the toes are all as long and 

 flexible as fingers. In consequence of this, the whole species climb trees 

 with the greatest facility, while it is only with pain and difficulty they can 

 stand and walk upright; their foot then resting on its outer edge only, 

 and their narrow pelvis being unfavourable to an equilibrium. They all 

 have intestines very similar to those of man ; the eyes directed forwards, 

 the mammse on the breast, the penis pendent. The brain has three lobes 

 on each side, the posterior of which covers the cerebellum, and the tem- 

 poral fossEe are separated from the orbits by a bony partition. In every 

 thing else, however, they gradually lessen in resemblance to him, by as- 

 suming a muzzle more and more elongated, and a tail and a gait more like 

 that of quadrupeds. Notwithstanding this, the freedom of their arms and 

 the complication of their hands allow them all to perform many of the ac- 

 tions of man as well as to imitate his gestures. 



They have long been divided into two genera, the Monkeys and the 

 Lemurs, which, by the multiplication of secondary forms, have now be- 

 come two small families, between which we must place a third genus, that 

 of the Ouistitis, as it is not conveniently referable to the one or the 

 other. 



Si MI A, Lin. 



The monkeys are all quadrumana, which have four straight incisors in 

 each jaw, and flat nails on all the extremities-; two characters which ap- 

 proximate them more nearly to man than the subsequent genera ; their 

 molares have also blunt tubercles like ours, and their food consists chiefly 

 of fruits. Their canine teeth, however, being longer than the rest, sup- 

 ply them with a weapon we do not possess, and which require a hoUow in 

 the opposite jaw, to receive them when the mouth is closed. 



They may be divided, from the number of their molar teeth, into two prin- 

 cipal subgenera, which are again subdi^dded into numerous groups*. The 



* Buffon subdivided the monkeys into five tribes : the true monkeys, without tails ; 

 the baboons, with short tails; the guenons, with long tails and callous buttocks; the 

 sapajoHs, with long prehensile tails and no callus; the sagouins, with long tails, not 

 prehensile and without callus. Erxleben, adopting this division, translated these 

 names by simia, papio, cercopitliecus, cebus, and callithrix. Thus it is, that the names 



