472 ON THE ZOOLOGICAL POSITION 



Ever since the time of Burmeister (1846) everyone who has 

 studied Tarsias has admitted its peculiar!}^ distinctive position, 

 which Burmeister himself described so clearly when he claimed 

 it as a connecting-link between the Lemurs and the Apes 

 ("Uebergangslied, wenn avich gerade nicht eins der auffallendsten 

 und merkwiirdigsten "). He clearly recognised its generalised 

 character and its resemblances both to the Insectivora and to the 

 higher Primates, and epigrammatically summarised his con- 

 clusions in these words : — " Aber Tarsius ist nicht mal ein Affe, 

 er ist viebnehr nur ein HalbafFe"*. It is generally admitted 

 that Tarsius is a remarkably generalised creature which in many 

 respects is akin to the Menotyphlous Insectivora, and has per- 

 sisted with extraordinarily little change from the beginning of 

 the Eocene period. But it is also recognised that every part 

 of its anatomy, brain and skull (including the developmental 

 history of the skull t), face and rhinarium, muscles and viscera, 

 genitalia and mode of placentation, reveals its affinity to the 

 higher Primates and affords evidence of its differentiation from 

 the Lemuroidea. 



Hence we are concerned in this discussion, not so much with 

 the facts of the case, which are admitted, as Avith the right 

 perspective in which they should be viewed, and their significance 

 estimated and expressed in classification. This cannot be done 

 merely by enumerating lists of differences between Tarsius and 

 the Lemurs or resemblances of the former to the Apes, especially 

 if all the evidence that lends support to the reality of the kinship 

 of the Lemurs and the other Primates, and that indicates the 

 lowly rank of Tarsius, is suppressed. By means of such methods 

 of special pleading a case might be stated for the view that the 

 whale was a fish, if care were taken to omit all reference to 

 the mammalian characters of the Cetacea. Yet the facts that 

 establish the right of the Lemurs to be regarded as Primates are 

 no less definite thaii those that make the whale a mammal. It 

 revea.ls a singular lack of logic to exclude the Lemurs from the 

 Primates because they are not Tarsii. One does not deny the 

 rank of Garni vora to dogs because they are not bears ! 



In 1830 Wagler claimed that the Lemurs should be put into 

 an Order (Lemures) distinct from the Apes (Simife). Then in 

 1846 Burmeister with his wider knowledge and clearer insight 

 restored the true perspective, as I have already explained. But 

 since then a vast literature has grown up as the result of the 

 repeated reopening of these old controversies. Wagler has had 

 many followers, such as Gratiolet, Gervais, Milne-Edwards, 



* H. Burmeister, ' Beitrage z.ur Keniitniss der Gattuns Tarsius,' 1846, p. vi. 



f Eugen Fischer, " On the Primordial Cranium of Tarsius spectrum," Koninlc- 

 lijke Akademie van Weteuschappeii te Amsterdam, Proceedings of November 22, 

 1905, p. 400, " exceedingly close relationship of the developing cranium of Tarsius 

 and that of the ape and man " and " the striking resemblance between this type ot 

 skull and that of reptiles," 



