CHAPTER II 

 ORDER OF APES AND MONKEYS 



PRIMATES 



^ir^HIS Order includes all creatures with hands, and hand- 

 -■- like feet. With the exception of the Japanese red-faced 

 monkey, the tscheli monkey of China, and two or three other 

 Chinese species, all its members inhabit the tropics, far below 

 the frost-line. It is on or near the Equator that the lower 

 Primates reach their highest development, and the great 

 apes approach nearest to man. Let it not be supposed, how- 

 ever, that the chain of evolution from the aye-aye to the 

 gorilla is complete; for the gap between the gibbons and the 

 monkeys is much greater than that between the gorilla and 

 man. 



All men, even savages, are specially interested in apes and 

 monkeys, because they are the highest of the lower animals, 

 and stand nearest to man. There is no human being of sound 

 mind to whom their human-likeness does not appeal. We 

 will introduce here several species which do not exist in the 

 New World, because without them our Foundation for the 

 Mammalia would be incomplete. 



Although tropical America contains a very respectable 

 number of species of monkeys, they are, as a whole, both 



