1 6 APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS. 



Most of the Primates are animals essentially adapted for living 



in ^varm climates, and are never found 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 monkej^s 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 intenselj' cold. 



With the exception of the apes found on the Rock 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, thi'oughout 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 especial!}' 



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 bi'ick earth of Ilford 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 tlie 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 tlieir 



continual howling or chattering. The climbing powers of the South Amei-ican 



monkeys are largely aided by their prehensile tails, wliich 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, howevei", to what is often supposed to be 



the case, several of the smaller species are expert swimmei-s, and will fearlessly 



cross comparatively large rivers. 



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

 Characteristics. - ,.,... 



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 discovei-ed 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 



