314 GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



mental powers often takes place so early. Many a boy's 

 brains are curdled and squeezed into traditional artificial 

 moulds before he leaves the grades at school. We who seek 

 to enter into the kingdom of knowledge and to continue to 

 advance therein must not only become as little children, 

 but we must learn to continue so." 



ORIGIN OF MAN 



According to Osborn* man probably arose during the 

 Pliocene Period before the Glacial Epoch. At that time 

 there were no men in Europe, but the remains of a very 

 primitive ape-man (Pithecanthropus erectus) have been dis- 

 covered in Java associated with the porcupine, rhinoceros, 

 extinct species of elephants, and other animals which lived 

 in the Pliocene Period. Java was at that time a part of 

 the Asiatic continent and the primitive men were therefore 

 free to migrate north and west, as they apparently did. 

 The absence of hair in man indicates that he probably had 

 his later evolution in a hot country. Osborn says: "It is 

 possible that within the next decade one or more of the 

 Tertiary ancestors of man may be discovered in northern 

 India among the foot-hills known as Siwaliks. Such dis- 

 coveries have been heralded, but none have thus far actu- 

 ally been made. Yet Asia will probably prove to be the 

 center of the human race. We have now discovered in 

 southern Asia primitive representatives or relatives of the 

 four existing types of anthropoid apes, namely, the gibbon, 

 the orang, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla, and since the 

 extinct Indian apes are related to those of Africa and of 

 Europe, it appears probable that southern Asia is near the 

 center of the evolution of the higher primates and that we 

 may look there for the ancestors not only of prehuman 

 stages like the Trinil race but of the higher and truly hu- 

 man types." 



Through recent scientific work the history of man in 



* OSBORN, H. F.: "Men of the Old Stone Age." 1915. 



