THE OTHER BEASTS 



351 



at all, though such exist in each of the jaws of all the 

 other lemuroids. 



On account of these teeth, the true nature of this 

 creature was long misunderstood. It was taken to be 

 really one of the gnawing animals, or rodents, and was 

 so classed even by the great Cuvier himself. But what 

 are lemurs ? As we before pointed out,* they have no essen- 

 tial relationship to the apes, though they have long been 

 classed with them, and though it is convenient that they 

 should so remain, for they have no known more essen- 

 tial relationship to any other group of beasts. Some 

 tertiary fossils have indeed been supposed to indicate a 

 connection between them and hoofed quadrupeds, but 

 we regard this as being most problematical. The resem- 

 blance, which exists between our own species and the 

 group of apes, was insisted on in the very commence- 

 ment of the first of these essays, and since zoological 

 classification reposes exclusively upon characteristics of 

 bodily structure, man, when merely considered zoologi- 

 cally, must be taken as a member of that order to which 

 the apes belong. The difference between him and them, 

 in this respect, is small indeed, when compared with 

 that w^hich exists between apes and lemuroids. On that 

 account, if both lemuroids and apes are to be classed in 

 one order, such order must be divided into two sub- 

 orders, in one of which will stand man and the apes, 

 while the lemuroids must occupy the other. 



Of the gnawing animals, or Rodents, that well-known 

 American animal, the beaver, may stand for us as a type. 

 It is in much danger of extinction through the spread of 

 population, though the cessation of the fashion of beaver- 

 hats must tell somewhat in its favour. In the early days of 

 this century, when that fashion was in vogue, some 

 * See ante, p. 34. 



