Studies of Eocene Mammalia in the Marsh Collection, Peabody Museum. Pt. II. Primates / by J. L. Wortman.

  • Wortman, J. L. (Jacob Lawson), 1856-1926.
Date:
[1903-1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Studies of Eocene Mammalia in the Marsh Collection, Peabody Museum. Pt. II. Primates / by J. L. Wortman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    PART II. PRIMATES. Introduction. Somewhat contrary to the accepted order of arrangement usually adopted in treating of the Mammalia, I select next for consideration the Primates, a perfectly natural and homo- geneous order, including the Lemurs, Monke}7s, and Apes, as well as Man himself. This latter fact invests the study with more than ordinary importance, inasmuch as any additional evidence bearing upon the past history of the group to which man belongs cannot fail to prove of the highest interest, even though it throw only a side light upon the development of the human kind. In view of the belief that the general current of opinion seems to be setting strongly in the direction of the conclusion that the ancestry of the human species, with all its endowments, botli mental and physical, must be sooner or later traced with certainty to this source of origin, we may be pardoned for a somewhat exhaustive presentation of the facts which our fossils exhibit. The various groups of Mammalia have been developed and specialized along diverse lines, the primary cause of which we may regard as having been due to adjustment to varying con- ditions of environment. It thus happens that different sets of organs have been involved in these changes, so that when we attempt the classification and definition of a natural group, we seek to learn what structures have been most profoundly affected. In the case of the Primates, the enlargement and specialization of the cerebral lobes of the brain constitute the Am. Jour. Sci.—Fourth Series, Yol. XY, No. 87.—March, 1903. 12