INSECTIVORA. CHIROPTERA. PRIMATES. 403 



Baden. The shrews, Soricidae, and moles, Talpidae, are 

 also represented by typical jaws and limb-bones in the 

 Upper Eocene Phosphorites of France ; but it is interesting 

 to note that the humerus of Protalpa of this remote age is 

 not quite so highly specialized for burrowing as that of the 

 existing Talpa. The desman (Myogale moschata), now confined 

 to S. E. Russia, ranged far to the west in the Pleistocene 

 period, and characteristic remains of it occur in the Cromer 

 Forest Bed of Norfolk. The Chrysochloridae, or golden 

 moles of South Africa, have tritubercular upper molars; and 

 the extinct Leptictidae. from the Eocene and Miocene of 

 North America, are sometimes claimed as their immediate 

 allies. 



ORDER 8. CHIROPTERA. 



Nothing is known of the ancestry of the bats. A completely 

 developed wing, with distinct impressions of the membrane and 

 traces of hair, has been found in the Upper Eocene of Aix-en- 

 Provence, France. Numerous typical skulls and jaws, scarcely 

 separable from existing genera, have also been obtained from 

 the contemporaneous Phosphorites of the same country. 



ORDER 9. PRIMATES. 



The discovery of numerous fossil forms renders the precise 

 definition of the order PRIMATES or QUADRUMANA no longer 

 possible, several of the extinct insectivores and lemurs ap- 

 parently constituting a distinct link between this group and 

 the Insectivora. The latest studies of the skull and dentition 

 of the various extinct genera of Primates, have also to a great 

 extent filled the gap between the two sub-orders, Lemuroidea 

 and Anthropoidea, into which they are usually divided. 



Sub-Order 1. Lemuroidea. 



The lemurs are clearly of a lower grade than the apes (or 

 Anthropoidea), and some of the extinct genera commonly 

 referred to the sub-order they represent, are doubtless to be 

 regarded as the direct ancestors of the higher group. The 



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