68 APES AND MONKEYS. 



^infrequently bright-coloured, afford another character by which we can at once 

 distinguish an Old World monkey from any and all of its American cousins. Their 

 use is to afford a comfortable rest for the body in the upright sitting posture 

 assumed by the monkeys and baboons of the Old World. 



Cheek Another feature absolutely peculiar to the monkeys and baboons 



Pouches. O f the Old World, although by no means common to the whole of 

 them, is the presence of those pouches in the cheeks, with which all who have fed 

 tame monkeys must be perfectly familiar. These cheek-pouches are formed by 

 folds in the skin, and when empty lie flat on either side of the face. They can, 

 however, be so distended as to contain a large quantity of food, and then stick out 

 prominently on either side, so as to communicate a peculiarly bloated appearance 

 to the face. The possession of these pouches must obviously be a great advantage 

 to the monkeys in which they are found, since by their means a large quantity 

 of food can be hurriedly gathered, stowed away, and afterwards eaten at leisure in 

 some place of security. It might, indeed, be urged that the monkeys which do 

 not possess these convenient receptacles appear to get on in life quite as well as 

 their relations who are thus provided ; and that, therefore, these pouches are of no 

 real advantage. To this it may be replied that such Old World monkeys as have 

 no cheek-pouches feed much more on leaves and shoots than on fruits ; and that 

 they are furnished with a peculiarly complex stomach in which this food can be 

 rapidly stowed away previously to undergoing complete digestion. 



With regard to the limbs of the Old World monkeys and baboons, 



it may be observed that the arms never present that great excess in 

 length over the legs which we have seen to be the case among the Man-like Apes ; 

 and the legs may, sometimes, be the longer of the two. The thumb of the Old 

 World monkeys and baboons can in all cases be fully opposed to the fingers, 

 except, of course, in the African species in which it is either absent or rudimentary, 

 and therein have another marked point of difference from the American group. 



Finally, the skeletons of all members of the present group may 



be readily distinguished from those of the Man-like Apes by the 

 breast-bone being narrow and flattened from side to side, instead of broad 

 and flattened from back to front. Moreover, all of the species have a central bone 

 in the wrist, a characteristic they have in common with the gibbons and orangs 

 among the Man-like- Apes. 



Such, then, are the leading features by which the monkeys and 

 baboons of the Old World (forming a larger group than any other 

 in the order) are distinguished from the groups immediately above and below 

 them in the zoological scale ; and the reader who has followed us carefully thus far 

 ought to be able to tell at once whether any particular monkey that is set before 

 him should or should not be included in the present group. When we speak of the 

 members of this group occupying a position immediately below that of the Man- 

 like Apes, we must guard ourselves from conveying the idea that the one can in 

 any sense be regarded as the ancestor of the other. The difference in the structure 

 of the molar teeth of the two groups is alone sufficient to prove that this cannot be 

 the case ; those of the Man-like Apes being of a more primitive type than are those 



