THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



and fundamental structure. They show a re- 

 markable row of teeth without extremes, or cari- 

 catured exaggerations, and the present monkey 

 and human teeth are easily derived from them. 

 Furthermore, these skeletons have four feet, or 

 rather four hands, with five regular fingers, 

 among them one very flexible thumb. This is 

 another very good prototype of the monkey and 

 human hand, which is so widely different from 

 the claw of the lion, or from the shin and hoof 

 of the horse. In place of nails, these five fingers 

 had an indefinite sort of thing, half way between 

 a claw and a hoof, which might easily have de- 

 veloped into anything, say, a horse's hoof, a 

 carnivore's claw, or the nail of a Simian, or a 

 human hand. 



On the other side, these animals show the be- 

 ginnings of certain divergences in the structure 

 of their bones. Some of them have more of the 

 rodent, others more of the carnivore, others of 

 some dominating ruminant character. There is 

 no doubt that these simultaneously represented a 

 very ancient group of ancestors which was just 

 then beginning to branch out into the various 

 great side lines of mammals. And it is equally 

 certain that one of these side lines was composed 

 of monkeys. Of course this original side line 



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