GENERAL CHARACTERS OF THE QUADRUMANA. 339 



the head vary : it may be taken, however, as a rule, that the occipital 

 condyles are thrown far more backward than in the human skull ; in 

 many, indeed, their situation is rather posterior than basal ; while, at the 

 same time, the muzzle becomes elongated ; the spinous processes of the 

 cervical and dorsal vertebrae being, accordingly, developed for the attach- 

 ment of the muscles appointed for the retention of the head in an oblique 

 or, in some instances, almost an horizontal position. The orbits, as a 

 general rule, have the outer ring complete, and are walled within, being, 

 as in the human skull, separated from the temporal fossae. 



The usual attitude of the Quadrumana is crouching, or more or less 

 diagonal, a posture intermediate between the upright and horizontal ; the 

 thighs are ordinarily drawn up to the body, the femur forming an acute 

 angle with the tibia ; whence, by the sudden extension of the knee-joints, 

 the animals spring with great vigour and facility. 



The teeth consist of incisors, canines, and molars ; the latter crowned 

 with tubercles, blunt or acute. 



The teats are two, and pectoral ;* and the females produce one or 

 two, rarely more, at a birth ; and manifest toward their offspring the 

 greatest attachment, nursing them with care and solicitude. 



The Quadrumana are all natives of the hotter regions of the 

 earth : their food consists of vegetable aliment ; not, however, to the 

 exclusion of animal substances ; many devour insects, eggs, and small 

 birds and reptiles, with the utmost avidity. 



The order, Quadrumana, comprehends the Monkey tribes, both of 

 the older continents and of America, together with the lemurine group, 

 consisting of a race of animals concentrated in the Island of Madagascar, 

 and thence spread, but sparingly, through the hotter regions of Africa, 

 the Molucca, and Indian islands, and also along the southern border of 

 the Indian continent. 



The Monkeys of the Old and of the New World were formerly 

 regarded as constituting a single family, divisible into two or, perhaps, 

 three sections. ) Cuvier, however, regards the Ouistitis, or Marmozet 



* The Tarsiers have the teats inguinal ; and the Loris, in addition to two pectoral, have two 

 inguinal. 



t Buffon, who appears to have studied the Quadrumana with much attention, divides the Monkeys 

 into five tribes : first, true Apes, without a tail ; secondly, Papios, with a short tail ; thirdly, Guenons, 

 with a long tail, and callosities ; fourthly, Sapajous, with a tail long and prehensile, and destitute of 

 callosities; and, fifthly, Sagoins, with a. long but not prehensile tail, and no callosities. Erxleben, 

 adopted these divisions, which, after all, modern naturalists have not much improved upon, 

 respectively terming them Simia, Papio, Cercopithecus, Cebus, and Callithrix ; and hence it is that 

 the terms Cebus and Callithrix, given by the ancients to certain Monkeys of the Old World, 

 have been received by naturalists as the designations of Monkeys of the New. Buffon was not only 

 aware of the distinctions between the Monkeys of the two great portions of the globe ; namely, the 

 Old and New; but of their mutual bearing upon each other, as holding correspondent places in 

 their respective regions : "As the Apes, the Baboons, and the Guenons, are found only in the older 

 continents, the Sapajous and Sagoins must be regarded as their representatives in the New ; for these 

 animals have nearly the same form, both externally and internally considered, and have, also, much in 



