324 eee, The Ancestry of Nasua. [April, — 
ancestors of those animals which are included in the zoological 
term Educabilia, whose cerebral physiology has been already 
explained. As notable genera of those days I may mention the 
pseudo-bear—Notharctus of Leidy, and the cut-tooth beast— 
Tomitherium of Cope. Others there were by Marsh, but their 
descriptions are not in my reach. Leidy’s species, Notharctus 
tenebrosus, described from very limited material, was a little ani- 
mal about two-thirds the size of a raccoon. Cope’s species, 
Tomitherium rostratum, founded on a much larger amount of 
material, was an animal probably about the size of Cebus capu- 
cinus, the prehensile-tailed monkey so common in shows. Upon 
technical considerations both these animals, albeit their strange 
and high-sounding scientific names, were low-grade monkeys. 
They were quadrumanous animals but of a synthetic, that is, 
` comprehensive type. The femur of Tomitherium was so long as 
to indicate that the knee was entirely free from the body, as it is 
in the whole monkey tribe of to-day, but never in any of the 
r carnivores. The round head of the radius indicates a complete 
; power of supination of the fore feet; that is, the ability to lift the 
hand, so to speak, forward and to turn the palm upward, a faculty 
of limb peculiar to monkeys and man, while the distal or lower 
end of the same bone resembles closely that of Semnopithecus, 4 
high-grade old-world monkey. “ We have then,” continues 
Cope, whom we are epitomizing, “an animal with a long thigh 
free from the body, a foot capable of complete pronation and 
supination, and a form of lower jaw and teeth quite similar to 
that of the lower monkeys.” 
~ And in this connection what about our Coati ? Says the profes- 
sor: “ A comparison with Nasua reveals no distant affinity. the 
fore limb presented in Tomitherium a great similarity to that 
_ Nasua.” And in both genera are some striking similarities in the 
cutting teeth. “The first impression derived from the appearance 
of the lower jaw, and the dentition, and from the humerus, is that 
Tomitherium is an ally of Coati, the humerus being almost a fat- 
__, stmile”” And is it not a striking coincidence that Professor 
_ Leidy’s first impression of Notharctus was of a resemblance x 
~ Procyon, the raccoon, which,as we have shown, is generic with 
- Nasua. 
It is evident then that Tomitherium and Nasua show some 
_ alliances in structure which look to a common origin or biogene 
sis, but it is a descent on different lines. From his study Ae 
