42 THE BIOCOSMOS GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



Marsupials may be taken as the order best 

 representing this transition, some having a 

 placenta and some none. They seem at pres- 

 ent to be on the way to geologic extinction, 

 being found chiefly in Australia (the opos- 

 sum is said to be the only American Marsu- 

 pial). But in the Mesozoic time these ani- 

 mals were scattered everywhere. The Nile 

 valley was probably the center of their orig- 

 inal development and distribution. 



Accordingly the hitherto pronounced char- 

 acteristic of the evolving line of animals was 

 their formability the apparently easy re- 

 sponse of Physis to Psyche. But the change 

 to a greater rigidity of sliape is already no- 

 ticeable in the higher apes. A curious fact is 

 that the zoologist of today has thrown over- 

 board the order Bimana as including man 

 alone and apart (this order was first desig- 

 nated by Blumenbach and retained by Cu- 

 vier), and on anatomical grounds has classed 

 man with the apes, monkeys, and lemurs. 

 That is, man is no longer distinguished as 

 two-handed (Bimana) in contrast with the 

 four-handed ape (Quadrumana), for the skel- 

 etal organisms of both are practically the 

 same. So both are now put together into 

 one order called the Primates (an old Lin- 

 nean designation), in spite of their enormous 

 difference as to intelligence. In fact, man 



