THE REIGN OF MAMMALS. 



229 



rivals man in stature {Dryopithecus) belongs to the group of 

 the gibbons, or long-armed apes, one of the higher families of the 

 modern Quadrmnana (Fig. 185). This animal presents, indeed, 

 the nearest approach to man made by any Tertiary mammal. 

 Still the differences are great, as, for instance, in the much 

 larger size of the canines and premolars. Yet so much con- 

 fidence has Gaudry in the resemblances, that he even ventures 

 to suggest that certain flint chips found in the Miocene of 

 Thenay, and which have been supposed to indicate human 



Fir,. 185.— Lower Jaw of Dryopithecus Fontani. An Anthropoid Ape of the Middle 



Miocene of France. Natural size. 



workmanship, may have been chipped by the hands of 

 Dryopithecus. Should this view be adopted by evolutionists, 

 it will at least have the effect of preventing flint chips from 

 being received as evidences of the antiquity of man. 



It is scarcely necessary to sum up this review of the history 

 of the Terti^~ ' mammals. Much that has been said may be 

 modified or changed by future discoveries ; but the great facts 

 of the late appearance of the placental mammals, of their 

 rapid introduction, with their ordinal differentiation nearly 



