354 



QUADRUMANA. 



Till very lately, the Simiadae (and, indeed, the Quadrumana generally) 

 were regarded as having no fossil prototypes ; an opinion now proved to 

 be erroneous. M. Lartet, in a communication published in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Academy of Sciences, January, 1836, and also read at a meet- 

 ing of the Geological Society of France, announced his discovery of fossil 

 bones of a large Monkey. They were found at Sanson, two leagues 

 south of Auch (in the department of Gers), in a tertiary formation, ex- 

 tending from the south of Auch to the foot of the Pyrenees, and appa- 

 rently the result of a long succession of water alluvia : they consist of 

 a lower jaw, with its dentition complete ; a molar tooth, with four tuber- 

 cles ; a bone of one of the fingers ; a portion of the thigh-bone ; toge- 

 ther with the bones of the instep, &c. 



246 



Above (fig. 246) are sketches of the almost perfect lower jaw, in 

 two views. 



According to M. Blainville (Osteographie Fasc. iv. p. 54), the per- 

 fection of the teeth in the lower jaw, their number, and the slight degree 

 in which they are worn, prove that the animal must have perished in the 

 prime of maturity. The incisors are four in number, somewhat oblique, 

 and, which has never been seen in any Ape existing, so elongated as to 

 have their points on a level with the points of the canines : they are 

 of a conical, or cuneiform figure, with long, sharp roots, and touch each 

 other only at the base, above the neck of the root. The canines are 

 short, with a furrow on the posterior surface, to the base, indicating that 

 the upper canine did not pass beyond the lower, as is usual. The last 

 molar, besides the usual four tubercles, as in the Semnopitheci, Ma- 

 caci, &c., has a fifth tubercle,' having two or three cusps. There can 



