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XXXIV. — Notice on the Remains of a Fossil Monkey from the Ter- 

 tiary Strata of the Sewalik Hills in the North of Hindoostan. 



By Capt. p. T. CAUTLEY, F.G.S., Bengal Artillery; and 

 H. FALCONER, Esq., M.D., Bengal xMedical Service. 



[Read June 14, 1837.] 



X HE most highly organized mammifers hitherto described in a fossil state, so 

 far as our information extends, 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, without the necessity of supposing that 

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

 completely investigated, had a climate unsuited to be the habitat of the tribe, 

 as we now know it, when the more recent or superficial deposits were in pro- 

 gress 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 unconnected 

 circumstances for the preservation of organic bodies, and their subsequent dis- 

 closure. Amongst the most important of these are the habits and organization 

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

 this lucky concurrence of circumstances would be rare with quadrumanous re- 

 mains. The very perfection in the organization of the Monkey entails, as a 

 consequence, that his solid frame should seldom continue to indicate the pre- 

 vious existence of the individual. His admirable agility and social habits pro- 

 tect him against most aggressions. A flood might suffocate in their dens, over 

 a large tract of country, the burrowing tribes; and might sweep from under the 

 feet of the monkey hundreds of its herbivorous and predaceous fellow-tenants 

 of the forest, and bury them in the near shingle or far-distant estuary, or drown 

 and deposit them in the stagnant swamp — while he would remain secure. The 

 tree on which he was perched might totter, and yield to the undermining cur- 



* Brewster's Edinburgh Journal of Science. 

 VOL. V. SECOND SERIES. 3 T 



