292 



FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALENSIS. 



XrV. ON THE FOSSIL QUADRUMANA OF THE 

 SEWALIK HILLS. 



I, — Notice on the Remains of a Fossil Monkey eeom the 

 Tektiary Strata op the Sewalik Hills in the 

 North of Hindostan.' 



BT CAPTAIN p. T. CAUTLET, F.G.S., AND H. FALCONER, M.D. 

 (^Bated November 2Atk, 1836; read Jime lith, 1837.) 



The most highly organized mammifers hitherto described in 

 a fossil state, so far as our information extends, have belonged 

 to the Cheiroptera; and the instances of these on record are very 

 few.^ That quadrumanous remains should be wanting is by 

 no means surprising, vdthout the necessity of supi^osing that 

 they did not exist. The countries of which the ancient races 

 have been most completely investigated, had a climate un- 

 siiited to be the habitat of the tribe, as we now know it, when 

 the more recent or superficial deposits were in progress of 

 formation. If we refer to the remote epochs when the climate 

 was suitable, and when genera now associated with the 

 Monkeys were abundant, it is easy to conceive that the latter 

 might have existed in numbers, without their remains being 

 entombed. It requires, in all instances, many uncomiected 

 circumstances for the preservation of organic bodies, and 

 their subsequent disclosure. Amongst the most important 

 of these are the habits and organization of the animals them- 

 selves. As in the case of birds, it might be predicated that 

 this lucky concurrence of circumstances would be rare with 

 quadrumanous remains. The very perfection in the organi- 

 zation of the Monkey entails, as a consequence, that his solid 

 frame should seldom continue to indicate the previous exist- 

 ence of the individual. His admirable agility and social 

 habits protect him against most aggressions. A flood might 

 suffocate in their dens, over a large tract of country, the 

 burrowing tribes ; it might sweep from under the feet of 

 the monkey, hundreds of its herbivorous and predaceous 

 fellow-tenants of the forest, and buiy them in the near shingle 

 or far distant estuary, or drown and deposit them in the stag- 



' Tliis memoir is reprinted from the 

 Transactions of the Geol. Soc. of Lon- 

 don, vol. V. 2nd series, p. 499. The astra- 

 galus described was presented to the 



Museum of the Society. — [Ed.] 



^ Brewster's Edinburgh Journal 

 . Science. 



of 



