56 GENESIS OF MAN. 



and the Ungulata. In man the placenta is deciduous, and he can 

 therefore have descended from none of these. 



The Deciduata again fall into two divisions according as the 

 embryo is attached by the placenta to the uterus upon a single 

 small area or disk, or by a band or girdle extending entirely 

 around it. The former are called Discoplaccntalia, the latter Zono- 

 placentalia. The Zonoplaccntalia embrace the Carnaria {Carnivora 

 and Pinnipcdid) and the Chclophora, to which the elephant belongs. 

 The Discoplaccntalia comprise the rodents, the Insectivora (moles, 

 etc.),. the Chiroptera (bats), the lemurs {Prosimiae), and the apes 

 (Simiae). To this last legion, also, belongs man, who differs in 

 this respect not at all from the mouse, mole, bat, lemur, or ape. 



Now it is a remarkable fact that in one order of the marsupials, 

 the Pedimana, embracing the two families Chironectida and Didel- 

 pliyida, to the last of which our opossum belongs, the hind feet are 

 modified, in a peculiar way, into organs for grasping, resembling 

 hands. This group can therefore only be regarded as exhibiting 

 the earliest marks of that important course of transformation 

 which culminated in the apes and in man. The course of develop- 

 ment was from this group of marsupials directly to one within the 

 Deciduata. Leaving all other animals wholly out of its course, the 

 line of descent of man passes immediately from the Marsupialia to 

 the Prosimiae or lemur group, an order which Haeckel takes out 

 of Blumenbach's Quadrumana, because it is so much farther sepa- 

 rated from the other apes than any of these are from one another. 

 They are ape-like creatures, but shade off in a very interesting 

 way into nearly all the remaining orders of the Discoplaccntalia. 

 The Chiromys Madagascariensis forms the transition to the rodents ; 

 the Galeopithecus of the Sunda Islands, to the bats ; the Macrotarsi, 

 to the insectivora ; and the Brachytarsi, particularly the Lori 

 (Stenops), to the true apes. They also exhibit close affinities to 

 the Sloths [Bradipoda), which have been regarded as an order of 

 the Edentata in the Indecidua ; but recent investigations have 

 proved that they have a deciduous placenta, and therefore it must 

 be at this point that the Deciduata and the Indecidua join. The 

 lemurs are harmless and melancholy nocturnal animals of a graceful 

 form, and are chiefly confined to the islands south of Asia and east 

 of Africa, and particularly to Madagascar. Their frequency on 

 the islands of the Indian Ocean led the English naturalist Sclater 



