Primate Ancestry.

It is generally agreed to trace the Primates back to an active pioneer animal form which took to the trees, and which arose out of the widely-spread Insectivores. This deriva­tion will probably satisfy any reasonable genealogist. But, if we may use a parallel in human families, this active animal was as different from its congeners as Napoleon was from his four brothers who played a part in European history, and it is not necessary to say more as to the significance of this fact than that the relative importance of “chassis” and “body” is again a useful analogy. But we need to ask what those congeners did if we are to succeed in understanding the Napoleon-like course of him who became our Primate ancestor. From the original widely-spread and plastic raw material of the Insectivores allied forms took different lines, and their stories are written at great length in one small and the three other great orders of Bats, Carnivores, Ungulates, and Rodents. As it has been pointed out, Carnivores took to attacking larger prey, including their less fortunate relatives, and stepped into the arena as carnivorous animals; the Ungulates-to-be became herbivorous and developed into two great groups of hoofed animals, relying mainly on flight for safety; Rodents took to burrows for defence, ceased to trouble much about attack, and became gnawing animals; Bats adopted an aerial life—a poor form of it indeed like that of the aeroplane—and acquired a degraded fore-limb. Before leaving these great orders of animals, whom I do not desire to compare unfavourably with poor Louis, Jerome, Joseph or Lucien Bonaparte, it is convenient here to refer to a fact which comes to light immediately one looks into such a piece of classifica­tion as this of the orders arising out of the loins of the early Insectivores, and that is the functional concep­tion underlying it. Doubtless pure functional “characters” could never supply a whole system of classifica­tion in the light of the modern doctrine of descent with modifica­tion, and of zoological affinities. This is shown in a change from division of six orders of Birds-Running, Swimming, Wading, Climbing, Predatory and Perching Birds, to that of a few old-fashioned Ratite Birds, and all the rest, one which seems the best that can be offered at present.