THE TROPICAL FOREST 101 



marmosets, which occur only in the tropical forests of 

 South and Central America. These animals are very 

 squirrel-like in appearance, and show much fewer 

 adaptations to the arboreal life than the higher Pri- 

 mates, in spite of the fact that they spend their lives 

 among the trees. Thus the fingers and toes, except the 

 great toe, have pointed claws instead of nails, the hind 

 legs are larger and better developed than the front 

 ones, and the great toe is very small. The tail is non- 

 prehensile. In the absence of the special adaptations 

 shown by their allies, the animals cHmb hke squirrels 

 rather than like monkeys — that is, they do not grip 

 the branches and swing freely from one to another, 

 but stick in their claws and chmb along the branch on 

 all fours. The diet consists of fruits and insects. - 



The lowest members of the Primates are the lemurs, 

 which show some marked peculiarities of distribution, 

 as well as of structure. They are entirely absent from 

 the New World, and in the Old World have apparently 

 been pushed far to the south by the development of 

 better organized forms, or by the attacks of carnivores, 

 for all lemurs are very helpless animals. Existing 

 lemurs occur in the tropical forests of Africa, in the 

 forests of the south-eastern region of Asia, an area 

 which contains many strange and primitive animals, 

 and finally in the island of Madagascar. In Africa and 

 Asia they are few in number, apparently in individuals 

 as weU as in species, and are always small in size. In 

 Madagascar there are more than thirty species, and the 

 individuals are abundant in every wood. Here also 

 the animals reach a relatively large size, the largest 

 being about two feet in length, and, as the number of 

 species suggests, they show adaptations to varying con- 

 ditions of fife. The number of species and differentia- 



