CHARACTERS OF PRIMATES 
and which is not found in other mammals. It is to be 
noted further that, again with but few exceptions, the 
Primates have five fingers and five toes—the reduction 
of digits so common in other groups, especially the 
Ungulata, not being met with here to the extent of 
more than one digit. Again, the Primates are hairy 
creatures, and are never spiny or naked. The nails 
upon the fingers and toes are to a considerable extent, 
or even entirely, flat, and as a rule not claw-like. There 
are, however, exceptions in the case of some digits in 
some Primates. The Primates have canine teeth, with 
the sole exception of the aberrant and remarkable 
Madgascar lemur Chiromys, the aye-aye, which has 
furthermore huge incisors and simulates in other ways 
a rodent animal, with which group it was in fact at 
one time confounded. It is at times to be found in 
the collection at the Zoo. 
It is plainly possible to divide the Primates into 
two divisions, viz. the Anthropoidea, or monkeys and 
man, and the Lemuroidea, or lemurs. The latter group 
connects the higher group with such lying lower in the 
scale as the Insectivora. They lack the literally straight- 
forward look of the Anthropoidea ; for the eye sockets 
in the skull are not so distinctly marked off for the 
reception of the eyes and the eyes only, as in apes and 
man. Their features, too, are foxy, and their brain is 
at a lower level than that of the higher Primates. Inter- 
mediate types, however, lately discovered in Madagascar, 
and of extinct forms, forbid a complete separation of 
the lemurs and monkeys. 
§ MONKEYS AND APES. THE SUB-ORDER ANTHROPOIDEA 
The distinguishing features of the higher Primates, 
the monkeys, have been already dwelt upon. It 
remains to consider the group a little further, in itself, 
21 
