10 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS. 



Pier-case 2. fossilised in limestone, which was obtained in 1813 by Sir 

 Alexander Cochrane, K.N, from the island of Grande-Terre, 

 near that of Guadaloupe in the West Indies. The rock in 

 which this specimen was discovered is quite a modem beach- 

 formation. 



Table-ease The oldest known traces of a man-like skeleton are the 

 roof of a small skull, two grinding teeth, and a diseased 

 femur, discovered by Professor E. Dubois in a bed of volcanic 

 ash containing remains of Pliocene mammals near Trinil in 

 Java. A plaster cast of the piece of skull is placed in Table- 

 case 1. It shows that the capacity of the brain-case in this 

 animal, which has been named Pithecanthropus erectus, can 

 scarcely have exceeded two-thirds that of the average man. 

 The forehead is very low, and the bony ridges above the 

 eyes are prominent. 



Pier-case 3. The man-like apes or Simiidse, which are represented at 

 the present day by the gibbons,- orangs, chimpanzees, and 

 gorillas, in the tropics of Asia and Africa, also, lived in 

 southern Europe in the latter part of the Miocene period. A 

 characteristic thigh-bone of one of these apes (Paidopithex 

 rhenanus) has been found in the lowest deposits of the 

 Pliocene period even so far north as Eppelsheim, Hesse- 

 Darmstadt. All the fossil forms are known merely by pieces 

 of jaws and isolated limb-bones, of which plaster casts are 

 exhibited in Pier-case 3. 



The Old World monkeys are proved to date back to the 

 Middle Miocene period in Europe. Mesopithecus, from the 

 Lower Pliocene of Pikermi, near Athens, is known by nearly 

 all parts of the skeleton, and fine skulls are shown in Pier- 

 case 3. It is allied to the living Indian Semnopithecus. 

 Macacus, which still survives in Europe on the rock of 

 Gibraltar, is represented by one molar tooth (named Macacus 

 pliocenus by Owen) from the Pleistocene brick-earth of Grays, 

 Essex. No other evidence of a fossil monkey has been found 

 in Britain. 



Sub-order 2. — Lemuroidea. 



Pier-case 3. The lemurs, which are evidently of a lower grade than 

 the monkeys and apes, immediately preceded these Anthro- 

 poidea both in Europe and North America, and became 

 extinct, at least in Europe, as soon as the latter appeared. 

 They were quite abundant in both regions during the Eocene 

 and Oligocene periods. Fine skulls and other remains of 

 Adapts and Necrolemur, which are typical lemurs from the 



