ANIMALS. 4.0;5 



AniiTials of tUe JMoiikey class are furnished with hands instead 

 of paws ; their ears, eyes, eye-lids, lips, and breasts, are like 

 liiuse of mankind ; their internal conformation also bears some 

 distant likeness ; and the whole offers a picture that may well 

 mortify the pride of such as make their persons alone the princi- 

 pal object of their admiration. Tiiese approaches, however, are 

 gradual ; and some bear the marks of this our boasted form 

 more strongly than others. 



In the Ape kind we see the whole external machine strongly 

 impressed with the human likeness, and capable of the same 

 exertions : these walk upright, want a tail, have tleshy posteriors, 

 have calves to their legs, and feet nearly like ours. 



In the Baboon kind we perceive a more distant approach to 

 the human form ; the quadruped mixing in every part of the ani- 

 mal's figure : these generally go upon all fours ; but some, 

 when upright, are as tall as a man ; they have short tails, long 

 snouts, and are possessed of brut d fierceness. 



The Monkey kind are removed a step further ; these are much 

 less than the former, with tails as long, or longer, than their 

 bodies, and flatish faces. 



Lastly, the Maki and Oppossum kind, seem to lose all resem- 

 blance of the human figure, except in having hands ; their noses 

 are lengthened out like ttiose of quadrupeds, and every part of 

 their bodies totally different from tlie human ; however, as they 

 grasp their food, or other objects, with one hand, which quadru- 

 peds cannot do, this single similitude gives them an air of sa- 

 gacity, to which they have scarcely any other pretensions. 



debased condition, in which he lias artually been repeatedly described as a 

 dift'erent animal under the name of Pougo, it sinks bt'loiv 30" ; degrading' 

 liim even beneath the level of the most savage and stupid of the baboons. 



In the foregoing observations we may be perhaps considered as giving too 

 much space to the generalities of the subject; an objection to wliich we 

 can only Eiiswer that nearly the whole of onr knowledge of the monkey 

 tribes consists in generalities. Of the great number of species, upwards ol 

 one hundi-ed wliich are now known and characterized, very few ;ire dis. 

 tiuguibhed from their immediate fellows by striking and strougly-marked 

 characters, either physical or moral. The groupes too ai-c comiected by 

 such gradual and easy transitions, that although the typical forms of each, 

 isolated from the mass and placed in contrast with each other, unquestionably 

 axhibit many broadly distinguishing peculiarities, yet the entire series offers 

 a chain so nearly complete and unbroken as scarcely to admit of being treat- 

 t'd of in any other way than s.s one homogeneous whole. 



