Throughout the long ages of the Tertiary period monkeys must have been very abundant and very varied, yet it is but rarely that their fossil remains are found. This, however, is not difficult to explain. The deposits in which mammalian remains most abound are those formed in lakes or in caverns. In the former the bodies of large numbers of terrestrial animals were annually deposited, owing to their having been caught by floods in the tributary streams, swallowed up in marginal bogs or quicksands, or drowned by the giving way of ice. Caverns were the haunts of hyenas, tigers, bears, and other beasts of prey, which dragged into them the bodies of their victims, and left many of their bones to become embedded in stalagmite or in the muddy deposit left by floods, while herbivorous animals were often carried into them by these floods, or by falling down the swallow-holes which often open into caverns from above. But, owing to their arboreal habits, monkeys were to a great extent freed from all these dangers. Whether devoured by beasts or birds of prey, or dying a natural death, their bones would usually be left on dry land, where they would slowly decay under atmospheric influences. Only under very exceptional circumstances would they become embedded in aqueous deposits; and instead of being surprised at their rarity we should rather wonder that so many have been discovered in a fossil state.
Monkeys, as a whole, form a very isolated group, having no near relations to any other mammalia. This is undoubtedly an indication of great antiquity. The peculiar type which has since reached so high a development must have branched off the great mammalian stock at a very remote epoch, certainly far back in the Secondary period, since in the Eocene we find lemurs and lemurine monkeys already specialized. At this remoter period they were probably not separable from the insectivora, or (perhaps) from the ancestral marsupials. Even now we have one living form, the curious Galeopithecus or flying lemur, which has only recently been separated from the lemurs, with which it was formerly united, to be classed as one of the insectivora; and it is only among the Opossums and some other marsupials that we again find hand-like feet with opposable thumbs, which are such a curious and constant feature of the monkey tribe.
This relationship to the lowest of the mammalian tribes seems inconsistent with the place usually accorded to these animals at the head of the entire mammalian series, and opens up the question whether this is a real superiority or whether it depends merely on the obvious relationship to ourselves. If we could suppose a being gifted with high intelligence, but with a form totally unlike that of man, to have visited the earth before man existed in order to study the various forms of animal life that were found there, we can hardly think he would have placed the monkey tribe so high as we do. He would observe that their whole organization was specially adapted to an arboreal life, and this specialization would be rather against their claiming the first rank among terrestrial creatures. Neither in size, nor strength, nor beauty, would they compare with many other forms, while in intelligence they would not surpass, even if they equaled, the horse or the beaver. The carnivora, as a whole, would certainly be held to surpass them in the exquisite perfection of their physical structure, while the flexible trunk of the elephant, combined with his vast strength and admirable sagacity, would probably gain for him the first rank in the animal creation.
But if this would have been a true estimate, the mere fact that the ape is our nearest relation does not necessarily oblige us to come to any other conclusion. Man is undoubtedly the most perfect of all animals, but he is so solely in respect of characters in which he differs from all the monkey tribe--the easily erect posture, the perfect freedom of the hands from all part in locomotion, the large size and complete opposability of the thumb, and the well developed brain, which enables him fully to utilize these combined physical advantages. The monkeys have none of these; and without them the amount of resemblance they have to us is no advantage, and confers no rank. We are biased by the too exclusive consideration of the man-like apes. If these did not exist the remaining monkeys could not be thereby deteriorated as to their organization or lowered in their zoological position, but it is doubtful if we should then class them so high as we now do. We might then dwell more on their resemblances to lower types--to rodents, to insectivora, and to marsupials, and should hardly rank the hideous baboon above the graceful leopard or stately stag. The true conclusion appears to be, that the combination of external characters and internal structure which exists in the monkeys, is that which, when greatly improved, refined, and beautified, was best calculated to become the perfect instrument of the human intellect and to aid in the development of man's higher nature; while, on the other hand, in the rude, inharmonious, and undeveloped state which it has reached in the quadrumana, it is by no means worthy of the highest place, or can be held to exhibit the most perfect development of existing animal life.--Contemporary Review.
[JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.]
SILK-PRODUCING BOMBYCES AND OTHER LEPIDOPTERA REARED IN 1881.
By ALFRED WAILLY, Membre Lauréat de la Société d'Acclimatation de France.
By referring to my reports for the years 1879 and 1880, which appeared in the Journal of the Society of Arts, February 13 and March 5, 1880, February 25 and March 4, 1881, it will be seen that the bad weather prevented the successful rearing in the open air of most species of silk-producing larvæ. In 1881, the weather was extremely favorable up to the end of July, but the incessant and heavy rains of the month of August and beginning of September, proved fatal to most of the larvæ when they were in their last stages. However, in spite of my many difficulties, I had the satisfaction of seeing them to their last stage. Larvæ of all the silk-producing bombyces were preserved in their different stages, and can be seen in the Bethnal-green Museum. In July, when the weather was magnificent, the little trees in my garden were literally covered with larvæ of more species than I ever had before, and two or three more weeks of fair weather would have given me a good crop of cocoons, instead of which I only obtained a very small number. The sparrows, as usual, also destroyed a quantity of worms, in spite of wire or fish-netting placed over some of the trees.