456 ANIMALS OF EGA 



the subject, and promises an early solution to honest 

 and patient investigation. These questions, also, show 

 how interesting and difhcult are the problems which 

 Natural History, granted the right and ability of the 

 human mind to deal with them, has to solve. 



It is a suggestive fact that all the fossil monkeys which 

 have been found in Europe and America, belong in each 

 case to the types which are still peculiar to the continent 

 which they inhabit. The European fossils are all of the 

 Pithecidae family, the South American all belong to the 

 Cebidae and Marmoset families. The separation of the 

 two continental masses (at least of their warm zones) 

 must therefore be of great geological antiquity. It is 

 interesting to trace how the diversification of forms (if 

 the expression may be allowed), since the separation, 

 has gone on in Tropical America. What wide divergence 

 as to size, forms, habits, and mental dispositions, between 

 the silver marmoset so small that it may be inclosed in 

 the two hands, and the strong and savage black Howler, 

 nearly two feet and a half in length of trunk ! Yet there 

 has been no direct advance in the organization of the 

 order towards a higher type, such as is exhibited in the 

 old world. America, for her share, has produced the 

 most perfectly arboreal monkey in the world ; but beyond 

 the perfection of the arboreal type she does not go. The 

 retention of arboreal forms throughout long geological 

 ages, may teach geologists that there must always have 

 been extensive land areas covered by forests on the site 

 of the tropical zone of America. It is curious to reflect, 

 in conjunction with the fact of the advance of the American 

 Quadrumana having halted at a low stage, that ethnolo- 

 gists have almost unanimously come to the conclusion 

 that the race of men now inhabiting the American con- 

 tinent are not Autochthones of America, the land of the 

 Cebidae, but immigrants from the Old World continent, the 

 land of the Anthropoid group of the order Quadrumana. 



Bats, — The only other mammals that I shall mention 

 are the bats, which exist in very considerable numbers 

 and variety in the forest, as well as in the buildings of 

 the villages. Many small and curious species living in 

 the woods, conceal themselves by day under the broad 

 leaf-blades of Heliconiae and other plants which grow 

 in shady places ; others cling to the trunks of trees. 

 Whilst walking through the forest in the daytime, especi- 



