MAN AND THE APES — Order, PRIMATES 
THE most perfectly organized animal, and the one best known 
to us, is man; and a book of zodlogy which omitted him 
would leave out the standard by which, in a certain sense, all 
others are measured. He is readily classified, apart from in- 
tellectual attainments, at the head of the highest order of 
mammals, the Primates, which includes with him the manlike, 
or anthropoid, apes, the monkeys, and the lemurs. All these 
have five fingers or toes (digits), each covered at the tip by a 
flat nail; and in most cases the thumb or great toe, or both, 
are “opposable” — that is, may be bent around opposite the 
other digits so as to form a grasping organ. The higher the 
Primate in the scale of organization the more perfectly are its 
fore limbs and hands adapted to seizing and handling objects, 
and its hind limbs to supporting and moving the body; and the 
whole sole of the “plantigrade” foot rests upon the ground 
instead of the toes alone, as in the case of the ‘‘digitigrade” 
dogs, cattle, and the like. 
These and other characteristics fit the Primates for life in 
trees, where nearly all spend their time; and the peculiarities 
of the skeleton and system of muscles are such as follow from 
this mode of existence. The number of young, as a rule, is no 
more than two annually, and they are born in a helpless con- 
dition, often almost naked of hair, toothless, and with the eyes 
shut; hence they must for a period be nursed and carried about 
by the mother. The food consists almost wholly of fruit 
and other soft or easily digested vegetable materials, insects 
and eggs, and the teeth are of nearly even size and ordinarily 
thirty-six in number. 
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