MAECH 73 



The different groups of animated nature have been com- 

 mitted to the care of specialists in each ; and the result is 

 a compendium wherein every branch of zoology is brought 

 well up to date. Man, being an arrogant and self-con- 

 fident mammal, may demur to the place assigned to him 

 in the scale of life by modern science. If he turns to the 

 volume on Mammalia, he will find himself at the top of 

 the class still, which is satisfactory so far; but there is 

 a sinister creature, which receives a proxime accessit, 

 treading uncomfortably close upon genuine human 

 heels. 



Luckily the animal, presumably truculent, is only 

 known now in a fossil and highly fragmentary con- 

 dition, and, as his presence has not yet been detected 

 in British territory, it may be assumed that he will 

 not claim representation at the coming Colonial 

 Conference. 



When Haeckel defined the gap between man and other 

 mammals he gave the name of Pithecanthropus, or Ape- 

 man, to a hypothetical creature which must have filled it 

 once ; since which M. Dubois has discovered remains of the 

 missing link in the Pliocene or early Pleistocene deposits 

 of Java. Part of a skull, two teeth, and one thigh-bone, 

 badly diseased, scarcely suffice to decide whether their 

 late owners should be admitted to the Hominidce, or 

 Man family, or relegated to the Simiidce, or Ape family. 

 Meanwhile, men of science have given themselves and 

 ourselves the benefit of the doubt. According to modern 

 classification the Hominidce consists of a genus, and that 

 genus of a single species, Homo sapiens, Man the wise. 

 Without disputing the universal fitness of the epithet 

 'wise,' one may reflect complacently that poor relatives 



