POSITION AM> AFFIXITIES OF TAESIUS. 465 



Discussion on The Zoological Position and AJjinities of Tarsius. 



Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S.. in opening a " Discussion on 

 the Zoological Position and Affinities of Tarsi us," said : — 



The small mammal Tarsius, though technically a lemur, ex- 

 hibits so many anatomical resemblances to the higher anthropoids 

 that it proves to be one of those solitary links between groups 

 which palteontologists welcome ms " living fossils." It survives 

 only in the Philippines and in the Indo-Malayan region, wdiich 

 furnishes some other primitive mammals, among which may be 

 specially mentioned the ancestral ruminant Tragulus. Apai't 

 from its enlarged eyes and its highly specialised jumping feet, 

 it might well be regarded as belonging to the earliest Tertiary 

 period, the Eocene. 



Among Eocene fossils already known lioth from Eui'ope and 

 North America, there are numerous small jaws with a dentition 

 much resembling that of Tarsius. 8ome of these may lielong to 

 primitive insectivores, carnivoi-es, and ungulates, which were not 

 Avell differentiated at the beginning of the Tertiary epoch ; but 

 complete skulls of Aimptomorphus and Nothai-ctii.s h-oin the Lower 

 and Middle Eocene of North America., and otheis of yecrolemur 

 from the Upper Eocene or Oligocene of Fi-aiice, are essentially 

 identical with the skull of Tarsius. The greater pai-t of the 

 skeleton of lYotharctus has also been discovered, and the hind foot 

 differs from that of Tarsius only in the shortness of the caleaiieum 

 and navicular. A survey of all the knoAvn fragments of Eocene 

 lemurs suggests that they were generalised forms, from which 

 both the modern lemurs and the anthropoids rnay have arisen. 



For the latest information reference may be made to papers 

 by Dr. "W. K. Gregorv in Bull. Geol. See. Amei'ica, vol. xxvi. 

 pp. 419-446 (1915), and Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. vol. xxxv. 

 pp. 258-271 (1916). 



Prof. G. Elliot Smith, F.Pv.S. : — Twelve yeai-s ago in a letter to 

 'Nature' (May 2, 1907, vol. 76, p. 7) I explained my reasons for 

 thinking that the analysis of the Primates which gave most 

 natural expi-ession to the known facts involved the splitting up 

 of the Order into three subdivisions of subordinal rank, of which 

 the central Suborder includes 2\trsius alone of the living members, 

 in addition to the extinct Eocene families Anaptomorphidse and 

 Microchoerid!>3. This mode of subdivision had been suggested by 

 Dr. Gadow in 1898. 



My presidential address to Section H of the British Association 

 in 1912 was devoted, in the main, to the discussion of the p)art 

 played by the Tai'sioidea in the Evolution of Man, and the dis- 

 cussion of the significance of the persistence in Man and Tarsius 

 of so many generalised features, which had been modified in 

 most other Primates, and even more profoundly in most mammals 

 of other Orders. In that address I attempted to explain the 

 preservation of a generalised structure, in association with excep- 

 tional efficiencv, as a token of the fact that Man's ancestors were 



