1 6 APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS. 



Most of the Primates are animals essentially adapted for living- 

 Distribution. . * 1 . - ! 1 



in warm climates, and are never round in regions which have not at 



least a hot summer. Some of them are, however, capable of withstanding a 

 considerable amount of winter cold ; and it is no uncommon sight in the outer 

 ranges of the Himalaya to see troops of monkeys leaping from bough to bough of 

 the snow-laden pines. Moreover, two species of monkeys inhabit the elevated 

 regions of Eastern Tibet, where at least part of the winter must be intensely cold. 

 With the exception of the apes found on the Kock of Gibraltar, which must either 

 have reached their present habitation when Spain was united by land with Africa, 

 or have been introduced by man at a later period, none of the Primates are 

 found in Europe ; they occur, however, throughout the warmer regions of the 

 remainder of the globe, with the exception of the Australian region ; but whereas 

 all the apes and monkeys of the Old World belong to two well-marked families, 

 those of the New World represent two other families closely allied to one another, 

 but markedly different from both those of the Old World. The lemurs, as we 

 shall see later on, are without exception Old World forms, and are especially 

 characteristic of Madagascar, although also represented in India and on the 

 continent of Africa, as well as in certain islands. In past times, however, lemurs 

 were distributed over the greater part of the globe ; and monkeys even roamed over 

 the ancient forest-lands of Essex, as is proved by the discovery of a single tooth in 

 the brick earth of Ilf ord in Essex ; and they were also abundant over the more 

 southern regions of Europe. 



Nearly the whole of the Primates are adapted for a more or less completely 

 arboreal life, most of them being inhabitants of forest regions. Aided by their 

 hand-like feet, all of them are expert climbers, and many, like the oriental 

 gibbons and the South American spider - monkeys, but rarely leave the trees, 

 leaping from bough to bough, and thus from tree to tree, far above the heads of 

 the travellers below, to whom their presence is made known only by their 

 continual howling or chattering. The climbing powers of the South American 

 monkeys are largely aided by their prehensile tails, which serve the purpose of a 

 fifth limb. Owing to the warmth of the regions in which most of them dwell, 

 no monkeys ever hibernate. Contrary, however, to what is often supposed to be 

 the case, several of the smaller species are expert swimmers, and will fearlessly 

 cross comparatively large rivers. 



It is now time to take a glance at some of the more characteristic 

 ' features which distinguish the order as a whole from other Mammals. 

 In the first place, both the hand and the foot are, as a rule, provided with five 

 digits, although in a few instances the thumb is wanting. Then, again, the hand 

 is always adapted to act as a grasping organ, and, with the single exception of man, 

 the same is the case with the foot, though it has recently been discovered that the 

 foot of the newly-born human infant displays distinct traces of having been 

 originally a grasping organ. In those cases where the hand attains its most 

 perfect development, the thumb can be opposed to the fingers, but in some of the 

 lower forms this action is only possible in a limited degree. The great toe is, in a 

 similar manner, opposable to the other toes, although in man, as is well-shown in 

 our figure of his skeleton, this action has been lost, and the bones of this toe lie 



