54 THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD 



a pedigree of the families or genera are totally 

 erroneous. 



2. The Unguiculates, with zoned or distoi'd pla- 

 centas, which are not retained. Haeckel assigns 

 to the Lemurs or Prosimians, the part of the common 

 ancestral type from which have issued all the other 

 orders, such as the Rodents, Cheiroptera, Insec- 

 tivores, and Apes, with the exception, perhaps, of the 

 Carnivora and the Proboscidians, which would pro- 

 ceed subsequently, the first from the Insectivores, the 

 latter from the Rodents. The Lemurs would them- 

 selves descend from the Sarigues, or Marsupials 

 with prehensile fingers. All these genealogical 

 views are extremely superficial and it may even 

 be said, quite inexact, at least as regards most 

 of them. 



Haeckel finally arrives, in a chapter which has 

 remained famous, at an examination of the order 

 of Apes, and more particularly of the series of the 

 ancestors of Man, considered as the highest term 

 of this order. The characteristic of this essay in 

 human phylogeny consists in the small number of 

 zoological stages which elapse from the primitive 

 Moneron down to man. 



The twenty-two stages of human evolution are 

 as follows : 



1. An original Moneron stage, that is, of proto- 

 plasm without nucleus or cellular membrane. 



2. An Amwba stage, or single cell with nucleus, 

 clothed with a membrane; this stage corresponds 

 to the egg. 



3. A stage of compound Amoeba or Synamoeba, 

 represented to-day by the mass of cells resulting 



