442 M. A. C. Hinton — A Monkey's Bone from the Forest-Bed. 



Mefta, in Algeria. From the figures and description it is clear that 

 M. trarensis had larger and stouter limbs than either M. inuus or the 

 species represented by the West llunton fossil. With regard to the 

 form of the distal articulation of the humerus, the West Runton fossil 

 agrees more closely with If. inuug than with M. trarensis. Pomel 

 states ^ that in young humeri of M. trarensis there is a supratrochlear 

 foramen which is obliterated as age advances, and his observations 

 lead him to believe that such a foramen is normally present in the 

 young humeri of Macacus. I have failed to notice any trace of it in 

 the humeri examined by me. 



JDolichopithecus, an ape from the Astian or Middle Pliocene beds of 

 Rousillon and Perpignan, had limbs verj^ much like those of Macaeus 

 in structure, and the humeri figured by Deperet * are similar in form 

 to the fossil before me. All the known species of Bolichopithecus are 

 considerably larger than that to which the West Runton bone belongs, 

 and while on the one hand Dolichopithecus belongs to the Middle 

 Pliocene, Macacus on the other undoubtedly occurs in various con- 

 tinental deposits cori'esponding in age to our Forest -Bed series, 

 I therefore prefer to regard this English monkey as referable to the 

 genus Macacus, although it is possible that it belongs to a late and 

 small species of Bolichopithecus. I do not doubt that the fossil 

 indicates a species distinct fi'om any of those recent forms with which 

 I have compared it and from M. trarensis, but whether or no it be 

 referable to any of the other fossil forms previously described must 

 remain an open question, since there is no material known at present 

 with which it can be compared. 



Previous Records of Fossil Remains of Monkeys in Britain. 



In 1839 Owen^ referred a fragment of a lower jaw with the last 

 molar and a detached molar, which had been obtained from the Eocene 

 of Kysonin Suffolk, to a monkey, and in the "British FossilMammals" * 

 he gave the name of Macacus eoccenus to these remains. Later on 

 Owen* founded a new genus of monkey for their reception — Eopithecus 

 — and at a still later date, with further evidence at his disposal, he 

 stated his belief that the fossils in question were really the previously 

 unknown lower teeth of Hyracotherium,^ a view which Kowalevsky ' 

 subsequently confirmed. 



In 1845 Owen* described under the name of Macacus pUocmius 

 a fragment of a right maxilla with the penultimate molar in place, 

 which had been found by Ball in the brickearth series at Grays 

 Thurrock in Essex, and a little later Owen published^ a figure of the 



1 Pomel : Coniptes Eeudus, cxv, p. 158. 



* Deperet: Mem. Soc. Geol. France, Pal. Mem. No. 3, p. 15, pi. i, fig. 4, and 

 p. 125, pi. xii, fig. 6. 



^ Owen: Magazine of Natural History, September, 1839, p. 446. 



* Owen : " British Fossil Mammals," 1846, p. 3. 



* Owen: Paleontology, 1860, p. 341. 



* Owen: Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 1862, ser. in, vol. x, p. 240. 



' Kowalevsky, " Anthracothcriitm,^' pt. i : Palaeontographica, Bd. xxii, p. 211. 



* Owen : Comptes Rendus, xxi, p. 573. 



^ Owen : " British Fossil Mammals," 1846, p. xlvi. 



