QUADRUMANA. 



by subsequent naturalists, and so continued, till, in the year 1838, in an 

 article on the " Zoology of America," in the Penny Cyclopaedia, vol. i. 

 p. 442, Mr. Ogilby published the results of his personal observations, 

 unaware, at the time, of Azara's statements, which independent investiga- 

 tion thus tended to confirm. Without any knowledge of the observations 

 made either by Azara or Mr. Ogilby on the subject, the non-opposability 

 of the thumb of the fore-hands in the American Monkeys was also observed 

 by the Author of this work, and alluded to in a paper on the Ouistiti, 

 published, Dec. 1835, in the Penny Magazine, as follows: "It is 

 among the forms of this section (the American section of Simiae) that 

 the prehensile tail, given as an accessory organ for grasping, is met with ; 

 together with a departure, in the structure of the hand, from its perfect 

 model. In the genus Ateles, embracing the Spider-Monkeys, with pre- 

 hensile tails, the thumb is wanting, or reduced to a mere rudiment beneath 

 the skin ; while, in other genera, the hand can no longer retain this 

 appellation." 



In a valuable memoir, read before the Zoological Society, March 8, 



1836, and published in the Magazine of Natural History for September, 



1837, but of which an abstract had previously appeared in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Zoological Society, Mr. Ogilby pursues, at some length, the de- 

 ductions which he conceives necessarily to result from a discovery, " one 

 of the most important," as he remarks, " that has been made of late 

 years in mammalogy, more especially in regard to its connexion with the 

 principles of natural classification in this department of zoology." 



To this paper, which embodies the results of his investigations, (and 

 in which a new arrangement of the Monkeys and Lemurs, comprehending 

 also the pedimanous marsupial animals, as the Opossums and Pha- 

 langers, is proposed,) the attention of the scientific reader is directed. An 

 examination of the principles upon which the arrangement in question is 

 based is here inadmissible, as it would lead to a long discussion, irrele- 

 vant to the plan of the present work. If the views of the learned 

 author are not adopted in the present instance, it is not because they 

 have not been maturely considered. Few naturalists entertain precisely 

 the same views ; but their differences of opinion, happily, tend to the 

 advancement of the science cultivated ; they stimulate to farther re- 

 searches and observations ; to a more extended application of assumed 

 principles, in order to test them ; and they open the door to improvements 

 and modifications. 



The Quadrumana, as before stated, are primarily divided into three 

 families, answering to the Catarhins, Platyrhins, and Strepsirhins of 

 Geoffroy ; namely, the SIMIAD.E, or Monkeys of the Old World ; the 

 CEEIDJE, or Monkeys of America ; and the LEMURID^E, or lemurine 

 animals of Madagascar, Africa, and Asia. The following figures (240, 



