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completely covered with hair, although prehensile, and therefore not so perfect a grasping organ.

Sub-family, Mycetinæ, consists of but a single genus, Mycetes (10 sp.), the howling monkeys, characterized by having a hollow bony vessel in the throat formed by an enlargement of the hyoid bone, which enables them to produce a wonderful howling noise. They are large, heavy animals, with a powerful and perfect prehensile tail. They range from East Guatemala to Paraguay. (Plate XIV., vol. ii., p. 24.)

Sub-family, Pitheciinæ, the sakis, have a non-prehensile bushy tail. Pithecia (7 sp.), has the tail of moderate length; while Brachiurus (5 sp.) has it very short. Both appear to be restricted to the great equatorial forests of South America.

Sub-family, Nyctipithecinæ, are small and elegant monkeys, with long, hairy, non-prehensile tails. Nyctipithecus (5 sp.), the night-monkeys or douroucoulis, have large eyes, nocturnal habits, and are somewhat lemurine in their appearance. They range from Nicaragua to the Amazon and eastern Peru. Saimiris or Chrysothrix (3 sp.), the squirrel-monkeys, are beautiful and active little creatures, found in most of the tropical forests from Costa Rica to Brazil and Bolivia. Callithrix (11 sp.), are somewhat intermediate between the last two genera, and are found all over South America from Panama to the southern limits of the great forests.

FAMILY 5.-HAPALIDE. (2 Genera, 32 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

NEOTROPICAL NEARCTIC PALEARCTIC ETHIOPIAN ORIENTAL AUSTRALIAN SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS.

SUB-REGIONS.

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The Hapalidæ, or marmosets, are very small monkeys, which differ from the true Cebidae in the absence of one premolar tooth, while they possess the additional molar tooth; so that while they have the same number of teeth (thirty-two) as the Old World monkeys, they differ from them even more than do the

Cebidæ. The thumb is not at all opposable, and all the fingers are armed with sharp claws. The hallux, or thumb-like great toe, is very small; the tail is long and not prehensile. The two genera Hapale (9 sp.), and Midas (24 sp.), are of doubtful value, though some naturalists have still further sub-divided them. They are confined to the tropical forests of South America, and are most abundant in the districts near the equator.

Sub-order-LEMUROIDEA.

FAMILY 6.-LEMURIDE. (11 Genera, 53 Species.)

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The Lemuridæ, comprehending all the animals usually termed Lemurs and many of their allies, are divided by Professor Mivart -who has carefully studied the group-into four sub-families and eleven genera, as follows:

Sub-family Indrisinæ, consisting of the genus Indris (5 sp.), is confined to Madagascar.

Sub-family Lemurinæ, contains five genera, viz. :-Lemur, (15 sp.); Hapalemur (2 sp.); Microcebus (4 sp.); Chirogaleus (5 sp.); and Lepilemur (2 sp.);—all confined to Madagascar.

Sub-family Nycticebinæ, contains four genera, viz. :—Nycticebus (3 sp.)-small, short-tailed, nocturnal animals, called slow-lemurs, -range from East Bengal to South China, and to Borneo and Java; Loris (1 sp.)—a very small, tail-less, nocturnal lemur, which inhabits Madras, Malabar, and Ceylon; Perodicticus (1 sp.) -the potto-a small lemur with almost rudimentary forefinger, found at Sierra Leone (Plate V., vol. i., p. 264); Arctocebus (1 sp.)-the angwantibo,-another extraordinary form in which the forefinger is quite absent and the first toe armed with a long claw,-inhabits Old Calabar.

Sub-family Galaginæ, contains only the genus Galago (14 sp.), which is confined to the African continent, ranging from Senegal and Fernando Po to Zanzibar and Natal.

FAMILY 7.-TARSIIDEÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

NEOTROPICAL

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

NEARCTIC

PALEARCTIC ETHIOPIAN ORIENTAL AUSTRALIAN SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS. SUB-REGIONS.

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The curious Tarsius spectrum, which constitutes this family, inhabits Sumatra, Banca, and Borneo, and is also found in some parts of Celebes, which would bring it into the Australian region; but this island is altogether so anomalous that we can only consider its productions to have somewhat more affinity with the Australian than the Oriental region, but hardly to belong to either. The Tarsier is a small, long-tailed, nocturnal animal, of curious structure and appearance; and it forms the only link of connection with the next family, which it resembles in the extraordinary development of the toes, one of which is much larger and more slender than the rest. (Plate VIII., vol. i. p. 337.)

FAMILY 8.-CHIROMYIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

ORIENTAL AUSTRALIAN

NEOTROPICAL NEARCTIC PALEARCTIC ETHIOPIAN
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The Aye-aye, (Chiromys), the sole representative of this family, is confined to the island of Madagascar. It was for a long time very imperfectly known, and was supposed to belong to the Rodentia; but it has now been ascertained to be an exceedingly specialized form of the Lemuroid type, and must be considered to be one of the most extraordinary of the mammalia now inhabiting the globe. (Plate VI., vol. i., p. 278.)

Fossil Quadrumana.

Not much progress has yet been made in tracing back the various forms of Apes and Monkeys to their earliest appearance on the globe; but there have been some interesting recent discoveries, which lead us to hope that the field is not yet exhausted. The following is a summary of what is known as to the early forms of each family:

Simiida. Two or three species of this family have been found in the Upper Miocene deposits of France and Switzerland. Pliopithecus, of which a species has been found at each locality, was allied to the gibbons (Hylobates), and perhaps to Semnopithecus. A more remarkable form, named Dryopithecus, as large as a man, and having peculiarities of structure which are thought by Gervais and Lartet to indicate a nearer approach to the human form than any existing Ape, has been found in strata of the same age in France.

Semnopithecida. Species of Semnopithecus have been found in the Upper Miocene of Greece, and others in the Siwalik Hills of N. W. India, also of Upper Miocene age. An allied form also occurs in the Miocene of Wurtemburg. Mesopithecus from Greece is somewhat intermediate between Semnopithecus and Macacus.

Remains supposed to be of Semnopithecus, have also occurred in the Pliocene of Montpellier.

Cynopithecida.-Macacus has occurred in Pliocene deposits at Grays, Essex; and also in the South of France along with Cercopithecus.

Cebida.-In the caves of Brazil remains of the genera Cebus, Mycetes, Callithrix, and Hapale, have been found; as well as an extinct form of larger size-Protopithecus.

Lemuroidea. A true lemur has recently been discovered in the Eocene of France; and it is supposed to be most nearly allied to the peculiar West African genera, Perodicticus and Arctocebus.

Canopithecus, from the Swiss Jura, is supposed to have affinities both for the Lemurida and the American Cebidæ.

In the lower Eocene of North America remains have been

discovered, which are believed to belong to this sub-order: but they form two distinct families,-Lemuravida and Limnotherida. Other remains from the Miocene are believed to be intermediate between these and the Cebidæ,-a most interesting and suggestive affinity, if well founded. For the genera of these American Lemuroidea, see vol. i., p. 133.

General Remarks on the Distribution of Primates.

The most striking fact presented by this order, from our present point of view, is the strict limitation of well-marked families to definite areas. The Cebidæ and Hapalidæ would alone serve to mark out tropical America as the nucleus of one of the great zoological divisions of the earth. In the Eastern Hemisphere, the corresponding fact is the entire absence of the order from the Australian region, with the exception of one or two outlying forms, which have evidently transgressed the normal limits of their group. The separation of the Ethiopian and Oriental regions is, in this order, mainly indicated by the distribution of the genera, no one of which is common to the two regions. The two highest families, the Simiidæ and the Semnopithecidæ, are pretty equally distributed about two equatorial foci, one situated in West Africa, the other in the Malay archipelago,-in Borneo or the Peninsula of Malacca ;-while the third family, Cynopithecida, ranges over the whole of both regions, and somewhat overpasses their limits. The Lemuroid group, on the other hand, offers us one of the most singular phenomena in geographical distribution. It consists of three families, the species of which are grouped into six sub-families and 13 genera. One of these families and two of the sub-families, comprising 7 genera, and no less than 30 out of the total of 50 species, are confined to the one island of Madagascar. Of the remainder, 3 genera, comprising 15 species, are spread over tropical Africa; while three other genera with 5 species, inhabit certain restricted portions of India and the Malay islands. These curious facts point unmistakably to the former existence of a large tract of land in what is now the Indian Ocean, connecting Madagascar on the one hand with Ceylon, and with the Malay countries on the

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