30 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



nineteenth century, among others a gigantic semi-ape, dis- 

 covered by Forsyth Major in Madagascar. These discoveries 

 led the indefatigable Haeckel to draw up a complete scale from 

 the earliest fossil semi-apes to the anthropoids and man. 1 At 

 the base stand the early eocene Pachylemurs with forty-four 

 teeth ; then follow the eocene Nekrolemurs (Adapidae) with 

 forty teeth, and the Autolemurs (Stenopidae) with thirty-six 

 teeth, like the New World Platyrrhines. Remains of the teeth 

 of a macacus, named by the discoverer Inuus suevicus, have 

 been found at Heppenloch near Kirchheim-unter-Teck (Jura 

 Alps, Swabia), and ascribed to the pliocene age. Of still 

 greater interest to us are the fossil remains of anthropoid apes 

 (see Fig. I, a). The most ancient relic found in Asia is the 

 remnant of an upper jaw, discovered in the Sivalik strata of 

 India. Standing alone and probably belonging to the pliocene 

 period is the anthropoid ape called by palaeontologists Palczo- 

 pithecus sivalensis ; it is distinguished by a comparatively 

 narrow palate, and molars resembling those of the gibbon and 

 chimpanzee, but still more closely those of man. The discovery 

 of fossil anthropoids in Europe dates from 1836. 



The remains found were most frequently those of the Plio- 

 pithecus antiquus, and were chiefly jaw-bones, upper and lower, 

 furnished with teeth ; this anthropoid is held by Schlosser and 

 Zittel to be identical with the gibbon, but is regarded by 

 Dubois as representing a separate order of long-armed apes, 

 now extinct. Judging from the distribution of the fossils, the 

 Pliopithecus antiquus inhabited a region extending from the 

 north, south-east, west and south-west of France over Switzer- 

 land to Steiermark. 



Another extinct gibbon of the early pliocene period is the 

 Pliohylobates, surnamed Eppelsheimensis, from Eppelsheim, the 

 place of its discovery. The fossil femur closely resembles the 

 corresponding bone in man ; indeed, Pohlig, from the presence 

 of a linea aspera, declares this gibbon to resemble man far more 

 closely than any other, extinct or living. 



Still greater interest was aroused by the discovery of the 

 Dryopithecus Fontani in the south-west of France, in the 

 middle of the nineteenth century. At St. Gaudens, Haute 

 Garonne, the first relics brought to light were two halves 



1 Haeckel, Lectures, p. 22. 



