844 QUADRUMANA. 



none tenant the woods of that immense Continent. With respect 

 to Europe, there is one isolated point, the rock of Gibraltar, where 

 a single species, the Magot, or Barbary Ape, dwells in freedom, and 

 continues to breed : it is, however, very probable that it must be 

 regarded in the light of a naturalized colonizer of the place, to which 

 accident or design may have introduced it, and not as an aborigi- 

 nal ; if, indeed, there were not, at some ancient period, as many con- 

 jecture, a connexion, at this point, between the shores of Europe and 

 Africa, which the sea has dissolved, gradually widening the interval, till 

 the straits have gained their present breadth. Under these circumstances, 

 the rock of Gibraltar may have been the primitive abode of the ancestry 

 of the troops of Apes that now find refuge and food among the crags : in 

 which case it ought to be regarded, zoologically speaking, as a portion, 

 not of Europe, but of Africa. 



However this may be, the Barbary Ape is common along die 

 northern shores of Africa, extending even to Egypt. It was known to 

 the ancients, under the title of Pithecus (TTI^KOS), which seems to have 

 been a general appellation for the larger Monkeys, or Baboons ; the 

 discrimination of species being but little attended to. The organic 

 adaptation of the Monkeys for their climbing habits has already been 

 explained. The arms of all the Simiadse are much longer, in proportion 

 to the body, than in Man ; in the Orangs and Gibbons, their length is 

 at its maximum, as is also the length of the hands, which, when the 

 animals raise themselves erect on their hinder limbs, nearly touch the 

 ground. In the semi-terrestrial Baboons, on the contrary, the arms but 

 little, if at all, exceed the lower limbs in length ; and the hands, also, are 

 much more abbreviated, the length of these organs being in a cor- 

 responding ratio to that of the arms. The arms, it may be stated, differ, 

 to a certain extent, both as to length and muscularity, even among allied 

 species ; and this is particularly the case in the genera Cercopithecus and 

 Macacus. 



It has been stated, by some authors, that the inner condyle of the 

 humerus is usually pierced with a foramen, for tlie passage of the 

 median nerve and brachial artery, as in the Cat, Badger, Mole, and 

 many other Mammalia, in which either violent or long continued action 

 of the arms is habitual. In the skeleton of the Orang, Chimpanzee, 

 Mandrill, White-eyelid Monkey, Proboscis Monkey, and many others, 

 which have been purposely examined, no such foramen exists : it does 

 not appear to exist in any species of Old World Monkey ; but is ob- 

 servable in some of the American genus, Cebus, and in some of the 

 Lemurs. 



The fore-arm and humerus are generally nearly equal ; but, in many 

 species, the fore-arm greatly exceeds the humerus ; of the ulna and 



