AFRICAN MAMMALS 161 



Schlosser to be related to tlio ^lixodectidae of the basal Eocene of North 

 America ; the latter is referred by the same author to the Hyaenodonts. 



The most interesting group among the smaller mammals is the Pri- 

 mates. Two genera have been described by Schlosser from well preserved 

 Jaws and referred to the Anthropoidea. If so they are much the oldest 

 Anthropoidea known, for all the numerous Eocene and Oligocene Pri- 

 mates of Europe and North America are either certainly or probably 

 Lemuroidea, and although some of them may have been ancestral to 

 Anthropoidea they had not progressed to the monkey stage of evolution. 

 So far as the teeth are concerned, these Fayum Primates are distinctly 

 anthropoid. It should be remembered, however, that the Archaeopithecidse, 

 Lemuroids of Pleistocene Madagascar, paralleled the true Anthropoidea 

 in teeth and several features of the skull. Schlosser's reference of one of 

 the genera, Propliopitliicus, to the Simiidae, and reference to it as the 

 direct ancestor of man, was criticized by Matthew as not warranted by the 

 evidence presented in favor of a conclusion so profoundly important. 



Explorations in the Pleistocene swamp deposits of Madagascar have 

 been continued with great success, and the British Museum, Paris Mu- 

 seum, and Vienna Museum have secured splendid series of skulls and 

 skeletons of the extinct Megaladapis and other Lemuroid genera. These 

 have been thoroughly studied and monographed by Forsyth ]\Iajor, 

 Standing, Grandidier, and Lorenz von Liburnau. Grandidier concludes 

 that these genera are closely related to the European Oligocene genus 

 Adapis, and that the Lemuroids form an order distinct from the Anthro- 

 poids. Standing regards them as being closely related to the modern 

 Lemuroids, but having little to do with the Adapidse, while he does not 

 admit the separation of Lemuroidea and Anthropoidea even as distinct 

 suborders. A careful study of the Eocene Primates of North America 

 and Europe, with the complete skulls and skeletons now at hand, will 

 probably furnish the key to the true affinities of these Malagasy Primates. 



Some of these Malagasy giant Lemuroids may have survived until quite 

 recent times. Trouessart^ quotes a passage from an early description of 

 Madagascar (Flacourt, 1658), which might refer to one of the short-faced 

 genera like Arcliceolemiir : "The Tratratratra is an animal as large as 

 a heifer, with round head and the face of a man ; the fore feet are like 

 those of a monkey and so are the hind feet. The hair is frizzled, the tail 

 short, and the ears like those of a man. It is seen near the Strait of Lipo- 

 mani, in which neighborhood are its haunts. It is a solitary animal ; the 

 people of the vicinity are much afraid of it and flee from it, as it does 

 from them." 



»Rev. Crit. Palaeozool., vol. ix, p. 17G. 



