PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 585 
Osborn ** and Dr. Scharff,*® and in the opinions of other writers which they set 
forth in these two books. 
The extremely primitive and Metatheroid characters of the Jumping Shrews 
mark them out as the nearest approach to the original Eutherian mammal now 
living; and it is probable that South Africa, their present habitat, was not only 
the original home of mammals, but also the place where the Eutherian mammals 
were evolved. In Upper Cretaceous times there was a direct land-bridge *” 
from this South African home of the Jumping Shrews to the Southern Asiatic 
habitat of their Primate-like kinsmen, the Tree-Shrews; and also another broad 
tract linking Eastern Asia to North America. So that there is no difficulty in 
realising how the Anaptomorphid Lemuroids or their immediate ancestors reached 
North America. 
It is now generally admitted that Zarsius is not only the most primitive 
Prosimian now living, but that it is much more intimately related to the monkeys 
than the true Lemurs are. The fact that the earliest known fossil Primate, the 
Early Eocene Anaptomorphus of North America, so nearly resembles 7'arsius 
further strengthens this view, and convinces us that in the Anaptomorphide we 
have the real progenitors of the Apes and Man. 
Now, in the middle of the Eocene period these Lemuroids, and in fact all 
trace of the Primates, disappear from North America; and for the rest of the 
Eocene and Oligocene periods neither the Tarsioids nor true monkeys, according 
to some leading authorities, can be traced, until, in the Miocene, Platyrrhine 
Apes suddenly make their appearance in Patagonia, and Catarrhine and Anthro- 
poid Apes in Europe. Even if we side with those who disagree with Professor 
W. B. Scott’s opinion that the earliest monkeys in South America belong to the 
Miocene Age, and look upon them as Oligocene or Late Eocene, ** there still 
remain a great many lacunz in the fabric of our story. ; 
We are not concerned here with the problem of how Varsius and the Lemurs 
came to the Old World. It may have been the case that the original habitat 
of the Tarsioids ranged from North America to South-eastern Europe, and 
that the Tupaioid Insectivores, whose past and present representatives were 
distributed much in the same way, shared a similar fate. The Lemurs also 
may have sprung from some Protarsioid form and spread into Asia; or, seeing 
that their earliest allies*® are found in the Middle and Late Eocene beds of 
Europe, it is not impossible that they may have made their way from North 
America into Europe by means of Scharff’s hypothetical Atlantis,*° which 
according to him linked Mexico and the Antilles to Europe. 
But this is a problem that does not concern us in this inquiry. For the 
Lemurs, even in the Eocene, had left the path that leads to the Apes; and, 
however interesting J'arsius itself may be, once its Eocene progenitors gave 
birth to true monkeys we become interested in them, and not in the wanderings 
of the unmodified Lemuroids themselves. 
As the facts of Comparative Anatomy point quite definitely to a kinship 
between the more primitive Platyrrhine monkeys of South America and the 
Catarrhines of the Old World, and also suggest that the latter must have passed 
through a Platyrrhine stage in the course of their evolution, we must first 
consider the nature of the wanderings that such kinships involve. 
In the Lower and Middle Eocene of North America we find primitive 
Tarsioids, then in the Miocene [or late Eocene] in South America true Platyr- 
rhines occur, and in the European Miocene Catarrhine and Anthropoid Apes. 
What working hypothesis can be framed to fill in the extensive lacune in this 
story. Paleontology tells us little more than this of the evolution of the Apes. 
Hence we must fall back upon the teaching of Comparative Anatomy. 
The appearance in the Egyptian Fayoum as early as the Oligocene, accord- 
ing to Schlosser,*' of monkeys presenting primitive traits suggestive of the 
25 H. F. Osborn, he Age of Mammals, New York, 1910. 
2° R. F. Scharff, Distribution and Oriain of Life in America, London, 1911. 
27 See Dr. Ortmann’s map in Scharff, op. cit., facing p. 292. 
#8 Dr. von Ihering, quoted by Scharff, op. cit., p, 393. 
2° Adapis and the TJarsius-like Necrolemur. 
*° Op. cit., see map 14, facing p. 280. 
#1 Max. Schlosser, Zool. Anzeiger, March 1, 1910, p. 500, 
