AFFINITIES AND GENEALOGY. 14a 



gone; and how much to close resemblance in numerous unim- 

 portant points, as indicating the lines of descent or genealogy. 

 To attach much weight to the few hut strong differences is the 

 most obvious and perhaps the safest course, though it appears 

 more correct to pay great attention to the many small resem- 

 blances, as giving a truly natural classification. 



In forming a judgment on this head with reference to man, we 

 must glance at the classification of the Simiadse. This family is 

 divided by almost all naturalists into the Catarhine group, or 

 Old World monkeys, all of which are characterized (as their 

 name expresses) by the peculiar structure of their nostrils, and by 

 having four premolars in each jaw; and into the Platyrhine 

 group or New World monkeys (including two very distinct sub- 

 groups), all of which are characterized by differently constructed 

 nostrils, and by having six premolars in each jaw. Some other 

 small differences might be mentioned. Now man unquestionably 

 belongs in his dentition, in the structure of his nostrils, and 

 some other respects, to the Catarhine or Old World division; nor 

 does he resemble the Platyrhines more closely than the Catar- 

 hines in any characters, excepting in a few of not much import- 

 ance and apparently of an adaptive nature. It is therefore against 

 all probability that some New World species should have for- 

 merly varied and produced a man-like creature, with all the dis- 

 tinctive characters proper to the Old World division; losing at 

 the same time all its own distinctive characters. There can, con- 

 sequently, hardly be a doubt that man is an off-shoot from the 

 Old World Simian stem; and that under a genealogical point of 

 view, he must be classed with the Catarhine division." 



The anthropomorphous apes, namely, the gorilla, chimpanzee, 

 orang, and hylobates, are by most naturalists separated from the 

 other Old World monlveys, as a distinct sub-group. I am aware 

 that Gratiolet, relying on the structure of the brain, does not 

 admit the existence of this sub-group, and no doubt it is a broken 

 one. Thus the orang, as Mr. St. G. Mivart remarks," "is one of 

 "the most peculiar and aberrant forms to be found in the Order." 

 The remaining non-anthropomorphous Old World monkeys, are 

 again divided by some naturalists into two or three smaller sub- 

 groups; the genus Semnopithecus, with its peculiar sacculated 

 stomach, being the type of one such sub-group. But it appears 



12 This is nearly the same classification as that provisionally adopted 

 by Mr. St. George Mivart ('Transact. Philosoph. Soc' 1867, p. 300), who, 

 after separating the Lemuridae, divides the remainder of the Primates 

 into the Hominidae, the Simiadae which answer to the Catarhines, the 

 Cehidae, and the Hapalidae,— these two latter groups answering to the 

 Platyrhines. Mr. Mivart still abides by the same view; see 'Nature,' 

 1871, p. 4S1. 



18 'Transact. Zoolog. Soc' vol. vi. 1867, p. 214. 

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