GREGORY: NOTHARCTUS, AN AMERICAN EOCENE PRIMATE 



231 



mastication and with the enlargement of the canines for fighting pm'poses and for the pm'pose of pene- 

 trating the tough rinds of fruits. More or less close analogies to the dentition and skull form of the later 

 Notharctinse are offered among the Procyonidse {xElurus) and even by the gorilla, of which the high sagittal 

 and lambdoidal crests are clearly secondary and associated with a combination of frugivorous with pug- 



c ip. ip. 3p. -fp. im. ym. 31 



00 



Fig. 80. Upper and lower teeth of Proiuidicchus gaudri/i. Middle Eocene (Bartonien). Twice natural size. After 

 Grandidier. 



nacious habits. The skulls of supposed females in the Notharctinse have small canines, low muscular 

 crests, a wider forehead and less constricted brain-case than in the far more specialized males. In the 

 Adapinse the excessive expansion of the jaw and muscle areas, joined with the presence of wide chisel- 

 like incisors more or less analogous with those of the chimpanzee, the daggerlike canines and the sharp- 

 crested molars, all indicate that in this subfamily the fruit eaten had a tough rind which enclosed resistant 

 fibrous material out of which the juice was pressed and the nutritive tissue cut. 



From such considerations and from the detailed study of the divergent characters of the skull in 



