14 



BlMAXJ 



-MAMMALIA. QUADKUMANA. 



tints, from deep brown to a nearly perfect black, and 

 the hair short and woolly in its -appearance. The fore- 

 head is depressed and the jaws prominent, in some 



Fig. 5. 



Negro. 



cases so much so as almost to form a muzzle ; the face 

 is flat, with the cheek-bones not very prominent ; the 

 nose is broad and flat ; and the lips very thick. The 



Ethiopian variety includes all the races of Africa, from 

 the southern and western boundaries of the Semitic 

 nations (Moors, Arabs, and Abyssinians) to the Cape of 



FiK.6. 



'- 



Caffre. 



Good Hope. The principal races are the true Negroes 

 of Central Africa, the Caffres and Hottentots; the 

 Bushmen appear to be a degraded tribe of the latter. 



OfiDER II. QUADRUMANA. 



THE most essential character of this order is expressed 

 in its name; the animals composing it are furnished 

 with four grasping hands, and in the majority of 

 them these are all provided with opposable thumbs. 

 In some, however, the anterior extremities are alto- 

 gether deprived of thumbs, so that the posterior feet 

 alone are deserving of the title of hands; and this 

 presence of true hands on the hinder extremities, consti- 

 tutes the most constant character by which the Quad- 

 rumana are distinguished from the rest of the placental 

 Mammalia. It occurs again in the non-placental opos- 

 sums, and from this circumstance, some naturalists have 

 thought fit to form a single group under the name of 

 Pedimana, or Foot-handed animals, for the reception 

 of the Quadrumana and opossums. The only exception 

 to the character here given, presented by any animal 

 which we refer to this group, is that exhibited by the 

 Galeopithecus, or Flying Lemur, a creature which seems 

 to unite the Quadrumana with the Cheiroptera or Bats, 

 having been placed, by different zoologists, sometimes 

 in one and sometimes in the other of these orders. 

 In this there are no opposable thumbs either on the 

 anterior or posterior extremities. From the peculiar 



characters presented by the Gakopithecus, some zoolo- 

 gists, including Professor Van der Hoeven, have even 

 regarded it as entitled to form a distinct order. 



The principal distinctions between the Quadrumana 

 and the Bimana have already been indicated under the 

 latter head; we shall, therefore, confine ourselves here 

 to a general statement of the characters of the present 

 order. The conversion of the hind feet into hands, and 

 the accompanying modifications of the general structure 

 of the hinder extremities, which, as we have already 

 seen, prevent even the highest apes from easily main- 

 taining the erect attitude natural to man, adapt the Quad- 

 rumana most admirably for their mode of life, which 

 is, in most cases, strictly arboreal ; and as those species 

 which are not inhabitants of the forest, are dwellers 

 amongst the rocks, the advantage, even to them, of 

 their hinder hands will hardly be denied by the most 

 experienced cragsman. Amongst the branches of the 

 trees, the apes and monkeys disport themselves with 

 an agility and security astonishing to the spectator, 

 and the great African baboons are described as 

 scrambling up the faces of nearly perpendicular rocks 

 with the greatest ease. 



