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MR. ST. GEORGE MIYART OX THE SKELETON OF THE PRIMATES. 
On the other hand, in Man *, the lower Simiidse f , the Cebidse, Hapale, and Lemur 
they are not so, but their bases are as it were bevelled off, so that a line drawn across 
the articulations of these outer metatarsal bones with the tarsus inclines proximally as 
it proceeds peronead from the index. 
The head of each of these metatarsals has its vertical diameter always greatly in 
^excess of its transverse one, but this excess is carried to its maximum, perhaps, in the 
Simiinse (especially Hylobates) and Man. 
The shafts (if taken from a short distance beyond the proximal ends to a similar 
distance from the heads) never broaden distally, but decidedly taper in the lower Simi- 
idse, and still more so in Man. In Troglodytes they taper slightly, and very slightly 
in the other forms, except in Simia, Hapale, and the Lemuroidea, where they cannot be 
said to do so at all. 
The shafts are much laterally compressed in Man, the Simiinse, and Ateles ; in the 
rest they are more or less rounded. 
Antero-posteriorly directed planes passing from the middle of the dorsum, of each 
of these metatarsals, to the most prominent parts of their plantar surfaces, never con- 
verge below, in the Anthropoiclea $, to the middle, or to the fourth metatarsal, but more 
generally diverge from the former. Such a plane in the second metatarsal (that of the 
index) generally inclines downwards and tibiad ; and in the fourth and fifth metatarsals 
downwards and peronead. In Man this latter inclination is extreme, the fifth meta- 
tarsal being more flattened inferiorly in him than in any other Primate, though it is de- 
cidedly somewhat flattened below in many, e. fj. in Hylobates and Ateles. In Lemur, 
Galago, and the Nycticebinse this flattening is not at all marked, and in them perhaps 
even a certain convergence of these planes towards the middle metatarsal may be noted. 
The under surfaces of the metatarsals are slightly, but never more than slightly, 
concave from before backwards ; this is more marked, perhaps, in Troglodytes and 
Lemur than in others. 
In Man, Hylobates, and the lowest Simiidse these metatarsals are very nearly parallel ; 
in the rest they diverge but very slightly from behind forwards, most so in the Le- 
muroidea. 
The ends of the heads of these metatarsals are often inclined more or less strongly 
peronead, as compared with the long axes of their shafts. This is very marked in the 
lower Simiidse and the Cebidse, but little so in the Lemuroidea, and not at all, or only very 
slightly so, in Simia, Troglodytes, and Man. 
These distal articular surfaces do not, in Man, bend downwards towards their ends, 
but continue almost on a level with the dorsum of the shafts ; they are also limited 
-*• Described by Professor Huxley in bis £ Hunterian Lectures ’ (see 1 Medical Times ’ for 1864, vol. i. p. 177). 
t The obliquity of the metatarsals in Cynocephalus is well represented by Dr. Johax Geoeg Ilg, in his 
4 Monographie der Sehnenrollen.’ Zweiter Abschnitt, Erste Abtheilung, fig. 2. 
f De Blainyille says of the metatarsals of Cercopithecus sabseus, they are arched, “ le second en dedans 
et les trois autres en dehors ” ( loc . cit. p. 19). 
