228 



THE CHAIN OF LIFE. 



really omnivorous; and its skull shows some peculiarities 

 tending to those of the Marsupials. 



Much interest attaches to the first appearance of the order of 

 Apes {Quadrumafia), or, if we take the somewhat deceptive 

 classification favor /ed by some modern zoologists, the Primates j 

 including the apes and man. They begin in the Eocene, both 

 in Europe and America, with the lowest tribe, that of the 

 Lemurs, now confined to the island of Madagascar and parts 



Fig. 184. — Skull of a Cymetar-toothed H'i^^r^M achat rodus cultridcns). Pliocene, 



France. Reduced. 



of Africa and Southern Asia, and which may, Gaudry thinks, 

 be modified Marsupials, though he admits that this is hard to 

 understand. He mentions the resemblance of the teeth of 

 monkeys to those of some hog- like animals, a resemblance, 

 however, merely marking a similarity of food, and suggests on 

 this ground that some of the primitive ancestors of the hog 

 may have also given rise to the Monkeys. In the Miocene of 

 Europe and Asia we have true Apes ; and one of these, which 



