454 LECTURE XVI. 



witli those extreme forms wliicli we acknowledge as indepen- 

 dent species. 



I hasten to another example, which concerns us more par- 

 ticularly. 



Cuvier never had an opportunity of seeing a fossil monkey ; 

 at that time there had not been a fragment of one found. Even 

 on theoretical grounds, Cuvier contested the existence of 

 fossil monkeys. " At present/-' says Albert Gaudry, " we 

 know, besides those found in Greece, ten other species : two 

 from South America, three from Asia, five from Europe (where 

 at present no monkeys exist) . All these species have been 

 determined from very imperfect remains, the bones being very 

 rare. In Greece the fossil monkeys are more abundant. The 

 excavations I was commissioned to make by the Academy pro- 

 duced twenty skulls of these animals, several jaws and bones 

 of different parts of the body, so that I was enabled to compose 

 a drawing of the whole skeleton." After quoting the remarks 

 of A. Wagner, the first discoverer, and those of Lartet and 

 Beyrich on the fossil monkey, which Wagner considered as 

 an intermediate form between Semnopithecus and Hylohates, he 

 continues : " My last investigations had a remarkable result ; 

 they prove that the hmbs of the Greek monkey differ greatly 

 from those of the Semnojjithecus. The Greek monkey (called 

 Mesopithecus) resembles in its skull the Semnopithecus, but in 

 its limbs the Macacus. 



'' This is a perfectly transitional type, which connects two 

 genera perfectly distinct in the present creation. When we had 

 before us, not merely a fragment of a jaw (as is the case of most 

 fossil mammals registered in the catalogues), but perfect skulls, 

 we were apt to believe the Greek monkey a Seinnopiithecus. 

 This was an error. Had we, on the contrary, had before us 

 not a single bone but all the bones of the limbs, we might have 

 assigned them to the Macacus ; this also would have been an 

 error." 



I repeat with Gaudry : Is this not a perfect transition form 

 between two distinct genera, the head a Semnopithecus, the 

 body a Macacus ? We know not whether this new species, 

 which in Greece abounded in the tertiary period, was developed 



