180 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



not the least fear, most unexpectedly jumped upon my 

 shoulder, and thence into a tree under which I was stand- 

 ing. It is about the size of a large cat, but with longer 

 limbs. The woodcut (Fig. 43) gives an excellent idea 

 of this beautiful animal. 



There are also several smaller lemurs in Madagascar 

 belonging to the genus Chirogaleus, so that this wonder- 

 ful island contains twenty-six species of the sub-order, 

 while tropical and South Africa has only sixteen and Asia 

 five. The African species mostly belong to the genus 

 Galago, which consists of small long-tailed active animals, 

 and two others of the genus Perodicticus, which are tail- 

 less and confined to the dense forests of equatorial West 

 Africa. All are alike nocturnal in their habits. 



Distrihittion, Affinities, and Zoological Rank of Monkeys. 



Having thus sketched an outline of the monkey tribe 

 as regards their more prominent external characters and 

 habits, we must say a few words on their general relations 

 as a distinct order of mammalia. No other group so 

 extensive and so varied as this, is so exclusively tropical 

 in its distribution, a circumstance no doubt due to the fact 

 that monkeys depend so largely on fruit and insects for 

 their subsistence. A very few species extend into the 

 warmer parts of the temperate zones, their extreme limits 

 in the northern hemisphere being Gibraltar, the Western 

 Himalayas at 11,000 feet elevation, East Thibet, and 

 Southern Japan. In America they are found in Mexico, 

 but do not appear to pass beyond the tropic. In the 

 Southern hemisphere they are limited by the extent of 

 the forests in South Brazil, which reach about 80° south 

 latitude. In the East, owing to their entire absence from 

 Australia, they do not reach the southern tropic ; but in 

 Africa some baboons range to the southern extremity of 

 the continent. 



But this extreme restriction of the order to almost 

 tropical lands is only recent. Directly we go back to 

 the Pliocene period of geology we find the remains of 

 monkeys in France, and even in England. In the earlier 



