PRIMATES. 407 



of a comparatively large animal (Oreopithecus bambolii) from 

 the Middle Miocene of Tuscany ; and these are interesting as 

 exhibiting resemblances both to the Cercopithecidae and to the 

 Simiidae, as if they represented an annectant ancestral type. 

 The best known form is Mesopithecus pentelici, of which numerous 

 skulls and nearly all parts of the skeleton have been found in 

 the Lower Pliocene of Pikermi, near Athens. The skull and 

 dentition of this animal most closely resemble the correspond- 

 ing parts of the Indian Semnopithecus, while the comparative 

 shortness and stoutness of the limbs are rather suggestive of 

 Macacus. An allied genus, Dolichopithecus, is represented by a 

 comparatively large and elongated form of skull from the Lower 

 Pliocene of Perpignan, France. Macacus itself, which still 

 survives on the rock of Gibraltar (the Barbary Ape), also seems 

 to have had a considerable range in Europe during the late 

 Pliocene and early Pleistocene periods; a mandible and other 

 remains having been identified from the Pliocene of the Val 

 d'Arno, Tuscany, other fragments from the Pliocene of Mont- 

 pellier, France, others from Pleistocene cavern deposits in 

 southern France and Wurtemberg, and a detached molar 

 (named Macacus pliocenus) from the Pleistocene brick-earth 

 of Grays, Essex. 



The higher apes or Simiidae are known in Europe only 

 from the Middle Miocene to the Lower Pliocene. A mandible 

 from the Middle Miocene of Sansan, Gers, France, named 

 Pliopithecus antiquus, can scarcely be distinguished from that 

 of the existing gibbons (Hylobates) of the southern Indian 

 region ; while two mandibles and the shaft of a humerus' 

 from an apparently contemporaneous deposit at St Gaudens, 

 Haute Garonne (Dryopithecus fontani), seem to represent an 

 extinct generalized ape, as large as a chimpanzee and closely 

 related both to this animal and to the gorilla. A character- 

 istic femur from the Lower Pliocene of Eppelsheim, Hesse 

 Darmstadt (Paidopithex rhenanus), seems to be the latest 

 evidence of a Simian hitherto discovered in Europe. 



Fragmentary remains of apes are also known from the 

 Pliocene and Pleistocene of India ; the most interesting being 

 typical portions of the dentition of baboons (Cynocephalus), 



