of the same class of animals. Bontius, a grave physician, became so enamoured of the ape he describes as to array it with every grace, and to affirm that, able to speak, it only refused to do so from the wellgrounded fear that its use of language would subject it to toil. Gassendi, a distinguished mathematician, asserts that some species of ape are fitted to assume our attitude, perform our actions, and wear our dress, and are so gifted with the power of hearing and of touch, that they could learn to play delightfully on the flute or the guitar. Maupertuis, so celebrated as a philosopher, longed to enjoy the brilliant and instructive conversation of unsophisticated men, whose simple peculiarity was that some of them wore tails. And even Linnæus, the illustrious naturalist, to whom we are still highly indebted in our studies of plants and animals, had a notion that a monkey was not far below humanity, and described him as a man of the woods, moving abroad only during the night, and conversing in a kind of whistling sound; he fancied, too that the distance between them might be greatly lessened, if it could not actually be bridged over. Apes live in large communities, and generally on amicable terms. Their social instinct, however, seems limited to the tendency which our fruit-eating animals have to live in wandering troops for the purposes of mutual protection. They frequent large and fertile solitudes, joining with great herds of different kinds, but without one species commingling with another. But should any intruders appear on a district occupied by one of these herds, they all combine in resisting the outrage. A combat of this kind was witnessed by a party of Europeans in India, within a wall surrounding a pagoda. A large and powerful ape had got into the place, but was soon regarded as an interloper by the resident tribe; immediately an alarm was given, and a number of males united in an attack. Although the intruder was much more powerful than his assailants, he soon found that "discretion is the better part of valour," and fled for refuge to the top of the pagoda, which was eleven stories in height. This, however, did not screen him, for he was closely pursued thither by his enemies, but now having reached the top of the dome, which is small and narrow, he availed himself of the security of his position to take his revenge. By his superior strength he seized four of the most forward of his assailants, pitched them headlong to the bottom, and killed them by the fall, which somewhat damped the ardour of the rest, who, after setting up a loud and threatening chattering, judged it prudent to secure their retreat. The ape kept his position till the evening, when he descended and escaped. It is admitted that among apes we find the animals who make the nearest approach to man. It were enough to say that his mental and moral nature raises man immeasurably above them; but he is even clearly distinguishable from those most like to him, and the most sagacious of them all, in his physical being. One remarkable proof of this appears in that constitutional property which enables him to exist and increase in every climate of the earth, and to live on every variety of nutriment that it yields. On the other hand, were even the strongest animals gathered together from the arctic circle or torrid zone, to some central spot, so ill-suited is their constitution to such a change, that they would soon seriously suffer, and even be destroyed by the diseases that would inevitably arise. The entire structure of man supplies another proof of his high superiority. Compare, for a moment, the beautifully formed and firmly articulated bones of the human frame, with the skeleton of the Chimpanzee (given in the previous page), and it will be evident that the former is a part of an exalted order of existence. It is contrast, indeed, rather than comparison; and so it will be in proportion as the details of their respective organizations are minutely and carefully examined.. The strength of the several bones, the size and prominence of the parts at which union takes place, and the great mass of the muscles of the loins and the hips, distinguish man from every other animal. The brain of animals differs from that of man, as was to be expected from their low position in the scale of development. The moment the skull-cap is removed, the difference in size, and also in the full rounded appearance of the one, and in the compressed and flattened shape of the other, is at once observable. If the brain of each is removed from its cavity, the difference in bulk will be strikingly displayed, while one equally remarkable is found in the less development of the cerebral hemispheres, the greater thickness of the nerves in proportion to the circumference of the brain, and the smaller number of convolutions in its substance. The form of a well-developed human skull is a familiar object, but it is not so well known that the form of an idiot's skull is quite dissimilar, the lower part greatly protruding; while in the Chimpanzee the difference is still further magnified, especially in the widening of that part. As Professor Owen states, "a detailed comparison with the cranium of that animal or the orang shows that all those characters are retained in the idiot's skull which constitute the differential features of the human structure." The teeth in the jaw of the ape, as indeed of all the other monkeys of the old world, are of the same number as in that of man; and as far as the cutting teeth" and grinderst are concerned, they present no difference in form. But, in the adult animals, and more especially in the old males, the dog-teeth are developed in the same relative proportion as in the flesh-eating animals.§ The tusks of the orangutan, when full-grown, are at least as large as those of the lion, and are most formidable weapons : happily we know little of the manners of these animals in their adult state; but the fact just mentioned furnishes strong reason for supposing that the gentleness and placidity often observed in the individuals brought into Europe are not common in their native climates, but that their disposition alters according to the increase of their muscular force, and that in their adult state they are extremely formidable and mischievous. It has been well observed by Owen that, though "in the human subject the cranium varies in its relative proportions to the face in different tribes, according to the degree of civilisation and cerebral development which they attain, and that though, in the more debased Ethiopian varieties and Papuans, the skull makes some approximation to the proportions of four-handed animals, still in these cases, as well as when the cranium is distorted by artificial means or by congenital malformation,"—that is, malformation at its birth," it is always accompanied by a form of the jaws and by the disposition and proportions of the teeth, which afford unfailing and impassable generic distinctions between man and the ape." To carry on the comparison of this part of that creature with the human skull, by clothing them with flesh, and arraying them with hair, marking the differences that prevail in the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin of the two respectively, were therefore needless; we are instantly struck, if not painfully repelled, as we bring into juxtaposition the finest visage ever borne by the noblest of the + Canines. • Incisors. † Molars § Carnivora |