200 MAMMALIAN DESCENT. [Lect. YIII. 



Quadrumana. 



I shall leave tlie Quadrumana in tlieir awkward and 

 disagreeable contiguity to the ruling race. Nothing is 

 so unpleasant as to be pestered Avith poor relations, 

 especially if they l)e foul in feature and rude in 

 manners. Surely these old people of the land have 

 been left among us — nature not driving them all out at 

 once from the human Canaan — that they might be as 

 thorns in our sides, and as goads and snares, that we 

 may be pricked on to high courage, and strong resolves, 

 in our moral work of extinguishing all that is Ape-like 

 in our nature. For my own part, when, as a biologist, 

 I walk abroad for pleasure, it is not into the '' back- 

 slums" where these Mammalian Satyrs live ; and if it be 

 my lot to undergo metempsychosis, I shall pray to be 

 transformed, rather into a Barnacle, than into an Ape, 



" With forehead villanous low." 



Sitidce and Hipi')02')otamidce. 



The Pig is not a lonely creature ; though much 

 generalised, he comes nearer the special form of the 

 Euminant than any other outside that group ; his only 

 rival is that huge, unwieldy beast, the Hij)po236tamus — 

 probably Job's "Behemoth." The Pigs are numerous, but 

 the Hippopotamus is one of a sub-extinct family. These 

 lorms have lost the thumb and great toe, but have 



