30 NATURAL HISTORY. 
hand as belonging exclusively to man.” The chief ob- 
ject in the construction of the so-called hands of this 
tribe is to enable them to grasp the limbs of trees in 
climbing, in which they are greatly skilled. They are 
very imitative beings; but, even when they are subject- 
ed to long training, they can do but a few of the many 
things that can be done by the hands of man. On the 
whole, we may say that they have four members which 
partake in part of the character of a hand, and in part 
of that of a foot. It is for this reason that I have adopt- 
ed the name of Pedimana, foot-handed. There is an- 
other reason for this in the fact stated by Dr. Carpenter, 
that one large division of this tribe have this resemblance 
to hands in only one pair of the extremities, and that the 
hinder pair. It is for this reason that he suggested the 
name which I have adopted, giving it less breadth of 
meaning, however, thanI do. The suggestion is so good 
a one, that I wonder that he did not adopt it in his clas- 
sification.* 
* T may be considered by some as presumptuous in thus changing 
a name which has so long been retained in zoological classifications 
that it has almost acquired a right to its place by possession. But 
if the suggestion of Dr. Carpenter be a correct one, following it out 
fully can not only do no harm, but will certainly do good by placing 
the subject in its true light. If Sir Charles Bell is right in saying 
that no animal but man has truly a hand, and if the estimate which, 
_in Chapter IT., I have put upon this instrument, as fitly corresponding 
with man’s mental capabilities, be correct, it is surely going very wide of 
the truth to call the hand-feet of the ape and monkey tribe real hands. 
In this connection, I will remark on another change that I have 
made in the commonly received classification. Ordinarily, man is con- 
sidered as one of the orders of the sub-class Unguiculata. But I have 
put him (§ 24) in a sub-class by himself, thus not only separating him 
more distinctly from other animals, as I think truth requires, but se- 
curing in other respects a more natural classification of the whole class 
of Mammalia. 
In some classifications man is placed in even nearer relations to 
other animals than in the one ordinarily received. Thus, in that re- 
tained up to the present time in the British Museum, the first order of 
the class Mammalia is Primates, including man, apes, monkeys, bab- 
