The Old World apes, as just observed, are far more diversified amongst themselves than are those of the New World. They form, in the first place, two widely distinct groups or sub-orders, Pithecidz and Lemurs, and comprise about 125 species, divided into twenty-one genera. The Lemur group contains a remarkably great diversity of forms; this is shown by their being naturally divisible into four families, f and twelve genera, although containing only twenty-five species. Their teeth are very irregular in number and position, but never correspond with those of the Pithecide or Cebidze. These four families, in structure, are more widely separated from each other than are the two American groups of the same denomination. The Lemurs also contain © a number of anomalous or isolated forms, which, by their teeth, number of teats, and other features, connect the monkeys with other and lower orders of the mammal class; namely, the Rodents, the Insectivora, and the Bats. All the typical Lemurs, which constitute the great majority of the family, inhabit exclusively the Island of Madagascar.

The Pithecide are divisible into three groups, which again are much more distinct from each other than the subordinate groups of Cebide. These are the Anthropoid section, to which some zoologists consider man himself belongs, comprising the Gorilla, the Chimpanzee, the Orangs and the Gibbons; the Guenons (which in their forms, tempers, and habits, resemble the Cebidz), and lastly, the Baboons, whose extreme forms—the dog-faced species, with nose extending to the tip of the muzzle—seem like a degradation of the monkey type. There is nothing at all resembling the Anthropoid apes and the Baboons existing on the American continent. ‘The Guenons, too, have only a superficial resemblance to American monkeys; for they have all thirty-two teeth, nostrils opening in a downward direction (instead of on the sides, like

False molars, or premolars, differ from true molars, through being preceded in growth by milk teeth.: + True Lemurs, Tarsiens, Aye-Ayes, and Galeopitheci.

the Cebidz and Marmosets), and are, moreover, linked to the Baboons through intermediate forms (Macacus), and the possession of callosities on the breech, and other signs of blood-relationship. A few more words on the peculiar way in which these groups of monkeys are distributed over the earth’s surface. We may consider, in connection with this subject, the great land masses of the warmer parts of the earth to be four in number. 1. Australia, with New Guinea and its neighbouring islands; 2. Madagascar; 3. America; 4. the Continental mass of the Old World, comprising Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Islands of the Malay Archipelago, which latter are connected with Asia by a shallow sea, whilst they are separated from New Guinea by a channel of very deep water; the shallow sea pointing to a former, but recent, union of the lands which it connects, the deep channel a complete and enduring severance of the lands which it separates. Now, with regard to monkeys, these four land masses seem to have had these animals allotted to them in the most capricious way possible, if we are to take for granted that the species were arbitrarily created on the lands where they are now found. Australia, with soil and climate as well adapted for Baboons as Africa, where they abound, and New Guinea, - with rich humid forests as suitable for Orangs and Gibbons as the very similar island of Borneo, have, neither of them, a single species of native monkey. Madagascar possesses only Lemurs, the most lowly-organised group of apes, although the neighbouring continent of Africa contains numerous species of all families of Old World apes. America, as we have seen, has no Lemurs, and not a single representative of the Old World groups of the order, but is well peopled by genera and species belonging to two distinct groups peculiar to the continent. Lastly, the Old World continental mass, with a few anomalous forms of Lemurs scattered here and there, is the exclusive home of the whole of the Pithecidz family, which presents a series of forms graduating from the debased Baboon to the Gorilla, which some zoologists consider to approach near to man in his organisation. What does all this mean? Why are the different forms apportioned in this way to the various lands of the earth? Why is Australia with New Guinea destitute of monkeys, and why should Madagascar have stopped short at Lemurs, whilst America has gone on to prehensile-tailed Cebide, and the Old-World continent continued to Gibbons, Orangs, Chimpanzee, and Gorilla? Is it that the greater land masses have seen a larger amount of geological and climatal changes with corresponding changes in the geographical relations of species? Moreover, why should the smaller groups of the order be confined to smaller areas within the greater areas peopled by the families to which they belong? For, it must be added, the true Lemurs are confined to Madagascar, the Gibbons and others to South-Eastern Asia, the dog-faced baboons to Africa, and, as we have seen, the scarlet-faced monkeys to a limited area on the Upper Amazons. May we be allowed to explain the absence of these animals from New Guinea with Australia, by the supposition that these lands were separated from South-Eastern Asia before the first forms of the order came into existence? If so, it may be concluded that Madagascar became separated from Africa, and

America from the continental mass of the Old World, before the Pithecidz originated. But, if these explanations, founded on natural causes, be entertained, we commit ourselves, by the fact of entertaining them, to the admission that natural causes are competent to explain the existence or non-existence of forms in a given area; and why may not the exercise of our reason, founded on carefully observed and collated facts, be carried a step farther, namely to the origin of the species of monkeys themselves? I have already shown how singularly species of monkeys vary in different localities, and have given the striking case of the white and red-haired Uakaris. If these two forms, which are considered by the most eminent naturalists as distinct species, have originated, as the facts of their distribution plainly tell us they have, from one and the same stock, why may not the various species of Lemurs, of Baboons, of Gibbons, and so forth, given the necessary amount of time and climatal changes, have originated in the same way? And if we can thus account for the origin of the species of one genus, on what grounds can we deny that the genera of the same family, or the families of the same order, have also proceeded from a common stock? I throw out these suggestions simply for the consideration of thoughtful readers, but must add, that unless the common origin, at least, of the species of a family be admitted, the problem of the distribution of monkeys over the earth’s surface must remain an inexplicable mystery, whilst, if admitted, a flood of light illuminates the subject, and promises an early solution to honest and patient investigation. These questions, also, show how interesting and difficult 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 ali of the Pithecidz family, the South American all belong to the Cebide 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 organisation of the order towards a higher type, such as is exhibited inthe 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 ethnologists have almost unanimously come to the conclusion that the race of men now inhabiting the American continent are not Autochthones of America

the land of the Cebidz, 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 Heliconiz and other plants which grow in shady places; others cling to the trunks of trees. Whilst walking through the forest in the daytime, especially along gloomy ravines, one is almost sure to startle bats from their sleeping-places; and at night they are often seen in great numbers flitting about the trees on the shady margins of narrow channels. I captured altogether, without giving special attention to bats, sixteen different species at Ega.

The Vampire Bat.—The little gray bloodsucking Phyllostoma, mentioned in a former chapter as found in my chamber at Capri, was not uncommon at Ega, where every one believes it to visit sleepers, and bleed them in the night. But the vampire was here by far the most abundant of the family of leaf-nosed bats. It is the largest of all the South American species, measuring twenty-eight inches in expanse of wing. Nothing in animal physiognomy can be more hideous than the countenance of this creature when viewed from the front; the large leathery ears standing out from the sides and top of the head, the erect spear-shaped appendage on the tip of the nose, the grin and the glistening black eye, all combining to make up a figure that reminds one of some mocking imp of fable. No wonder that imaginative people have inferred diabolical instincts on the part of so ugly an animal. The vampire, however, is the most harmless of all bats, and its inoffensive character is well known to residents on the banks of the Amazons. I found two distinct species of it, one having the fur of a blackish colour, the other of a ruddy hue, and ascertained that both feed chiefly on fruits. ‘The church at Ega was the headquarters of both kinds; I used to see them, as I sat at my door during the short evening twilights, trooping forth by scores from a large open window at the back of the altar, twittering cheerfully as they sped off to the borders of the forest. They sometimes enter houses; the first time I saw one in my chamber, wheeling heavily round and round, I mistook it for a pigeon, thinking that a tame one had escaped from the premises of one of my neighbours. I opened the stomachs of several of these bats, and found them to contain a mass of pulp and seeds of fruits, mingled with a few remains of insects.* The natives say they devour ripe cajlis and guavas on trees in the gardens, but on comparing the seeds taken from their stomachs - with those of all cultivated trees at Ega, I found they were unlike any of them; it is therefore probable that they generally resort to the forest to feed, coming to the village in the morning to sleep, because they find it more secure from animals of prey than their natural abodes in the woods.

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