CHAPTER XIV 



THE OKDER PEIMATES 



THIS order in the system of Linnaeus includes Man, the Monkeys, 

 the Lemurs, and the Bats. By common consent of all zoologists 

 the last-named animals have been removed into a distinct order ; 

 but with regard to the association of the others there has been, 

 and still is, much difference of opinion. 



That all the Monkeys, from the highest Anthropoid Apes to 

 the lowest Marmosets, form a natural and tolerably homogeneous 

 group seems never to have been questioned; but whether the 

 Lemurs on the one hand and Man on the other should be united 

 with them in the same order are points of controversy. If, in 

 accordance with the traditional views of zoologists, the former are 

 still considered to be members of this order, they must form a sub- 

 order apart from all the others, with which they have really very 

 little in common except the opposable hallux of the hind foot, a 

 character also met with in the Opossums, and which is therefore of 

 very secondary importance. 1 



Using the term Primates in this wider sense it is not easy to 

 give any precise definition of the order. The dentition is diphy- 

 odont and heterodont ; the number of incisors being very generally 

 f , and that of the molars, with the exception of the Hapalidce, 

 being -f . The cheek-teeth are adapted for grinding, the molars 

 being more complex than the premolars, and usually having four 

 main tubercles, which may be either subconical or more or less 

 compressed. The orbit is invariably surrounded by a ring of bone ; 



1 For the arguments in favour of placing the Lemurs in a separate order 

 see Milne-Edwards, ' ' Observations sur quelques points de 1'embryologie des 

 Lemuriens et sur les affinites zoologiques de ces animaux," in the Ann. des 

 Sciences Nat. October 1871; and P. Gervais, "Encephale des Lemures," in 

 Journ. de Zoologie, torn. i. p. 7. For those for retaining them among the 

 Primates, see Mivart, ' ' On Lepilemur and Chirogaleus, and on the Zoological 

 Rank of the Lemuroidea," in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1873, p. 484. 



