ORDER QUADRUMANA. 29$ 



quence of, geographical discoveries. As unknown countries 

 have been opened to our view, unknown animals have 

 been found to inhabit them ; and even at the present day, 

 notwithstanding the improved state of knowledge in regard 

 to the surface of the earth, there is much reason to think 

 that zoology is almost in its infancy, especially when we 

 reflect on the terra incognita of Africa, America, and even 

 Asia, of New Holland and the Islands of the Pacific ocean, 

 without adverting to the new and almost daily discoveries 

 and wonders in fossil osteology. 



It is with the Quadrumana as with the rest of the 

 animal creation in America. The species, however ana- 

 logous with the monkeys of the old world, are very dis- 

 similar. There are no apes or monkeys without a tail 

 known in America, and but one species with a tail shorter 

 than the body, which was lately discovered by the Baron 

 Humboldt. There is no monkey known there, charac- 

 terized by the callosities which with only two or three 

 exceptions are found in all the race located in the old world; 

 a difference in the teeth, as noted by our author in the text, 

 also separates all these from the transatlantic division of 

 the race ; the extraordinary power of prehension in the tail 

 distinguishes many, and lateral nostrils the whole of the 

 transatlantic monkeys. And all the intermediate genus of 

 Oustitis or Hapales with unguiculated nails are exclusively 

 American. Territorial residence and physical peculiarities, 

 therefore, accord in separating the American into a distinct 

 group of monkeys. 



Nature, indeed, in general, disclaims our systematic synop- 

 sis, and in the infinite fertility of creative power, sports with 

 the abortive efforts of man, to reduce her works to the nar- 

 row measure of his own capacity. Systems are, however, use- 

 ful if not pushed too far. But by rendering them too minute 

 and complicated, their usefulness is destroyed. Some men 

 appear to think that, classification is the sole end and 



