Quadrumana

“ With mankind the differences between the sexes are greater than in most species of Quadrumana, but not so great as in some, for instance, the mandrill. Man on an average is considerably taller, heavier, and stronger than woman, with squarer shoulders and more plainly-pronounced muscles. Owing to the relation which exists between muscular development and the projection of the brows,378 the superciliary ridge is generally more strongly marked in man than in woman. His body, and especially his face, is more hairy, and his voice has a different and more powerful tone. ”

“ In either case it is worth while to bear in mind that the gap, hitherto supposed to exist between the Carnivora and the Quadrumana, has been partly bridged over by the researches of Milne-Edwards upon the "Embryology of the Lemuridæ;" [9] these curious little creatures, inhabiting the islands of Mauritius and Madagascar, and the adjacent coast of Africa, have been ranked as a subdivision of the Quadrumana on account of their arboreal habits, their prehensile limbs, and some anatomical resemblances to the monkeys ”

“ Perhaps, however, we ought not to insist very strongly on either of these negations: for the quadrumana could not be expected to occur often in a fossil state far from the tropical forests which might shelter and feed them; and man only braves the cold of northern climates by his superior knowledge of nature, and inventions to meet its variations. ”

“ At some future day, when many hundred species of extinct quadrumana may have been brought to light, the naturalist may speculate with advantage on this subject; at present we must be content to wait patiently, and not to allow our judgment respecting transmutation to be influenced by the want of evidence, which it would be contrary to analogy to look for in Pleistocene deposits in any districts, which as yet we have carefully examined. ”

“ It is in equatorial Africa that the most powerful of all the Quadrumana live, far exceeding the Oran Outang, and even the Pongo of Borneo. Mr. Bowdich and myself were the first to revive and confirm a long forgotten, and vague report of the existence of such a creature, and many thought, as we ourselves had not seen it, that we had been deceived by the natives. They assured us that these huge creatures walk constantly on their hind feet, and never yet were taken alive; that they watch the actions of men, and imitate them as nearly as possible. ”

“ For want of positive characteristics taken from the extremities, which could never,—in the eyes of true naturalists, as we have just said,—favour a serious distinction between man and other quadrumana, a characteristic in dentition has been discovered, remarkable for its constancy even in the most degraded and animal-like races, and which, first and foremost, distinguishes man from the group which immediately follows him in the zoological series. ”

“ We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure had been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed amongst the Quadrumana, as surely as the still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. ”

“ We may see human-like forms,—the quadrumana—clinging among the high branches, and leaping from tree to tree, like birds upon the wing; we may see them of many shapes, sizes, and colours, from the great howling monkeys, with their long prehensile tails, down to the little saïmiris and ouistitis not larger than squirrels. ”

“ Thus the most perfect race of Quadrumana will have been enabled to become dominant, to change its habits as the result of the absolute dominion which it will have assumed over the others, and with its new needs, by progressively acquiring modifications in its structure and its new and numerous powers, to keep within due limits the most highly developed of the other races in the state to which they had advanced, and to create between it and these last very remarkable distinctions. ”

“ The Mundurucú alone knew them,—could tell which were to be eaten and which avoided. Birds, too, came in their way, all eaten by the Indians, as also various species of arboreal quadrupeds and quadrumana. The killing and capturing of these, with the gathering of nuts and fruits to supply their simple larder, afforded them frequent opportunities of amusement, that did much to beguile the tediousness of their trackless straying. ”

“ The terms 'bimanous' and 'quadrumanous' had been already employed by Buffon, in 1766, but not applied in a strict zoological classification till so used by Blumenbach. Twelve years later, Cuvier adopted the same order Bimana for the human family, while the apes, monkeys, and lemurs constituted a separate order, called Quadrumana. ”

“ Their limbs end in true paws, bearing narrow, compressed, and sharp-pointed nails on the four fingers; the thumbs alone are provided with flat, large nails like human nails. They are the representatives of the transition from the unguiculated quadrupeds to the quadrumana, and rank, physically and intellectually, far below the genuine monkey with heraldic quarters. ”

“ The Quadrumana afford a very valuable illustration, because, owing to their undoubted affinity with man, we feel certain that they are really higher than any other order of Mammalia, while at the same time they are more distinctly allied to the lowest groups than many others. ”

“ In appearance they are diminutive, dark men, distinguishable from the highest order of Quadrumana by the absence of pile upon their bodies, and a knack of walking on their hind legs. Their dress is limited to about a palm’s breadth of coarse cotton cloth, and their only weapon a little knife, which hangs from a bit of string to the side. They are rarely seen. ”

“ The weaker ancestors of the Quadrumana possessed neither speed nor weapons of offense and defense, and nothing but an arboreal life was left them, where they developed the prehensile powers of the feet. ”

“ As small unimportant points of resemblance between man and the Quadrumana are not commonly noticed in systematic works, and as, when numerous, they clearly reveal our relationship, I will specify a few such points. ”

“ It is not so with any other animals; because, although the most perfect among them, such as the Quadrumana, live mostly in troops, since the eminent supremacy of the race mentioned they have remained stationary as regards the improvement of their faculties, having been driven out from everywhere and banished to wild, desert, usually restricted regions, whither, miserable and restless, they are incessantly constrained to fly and hide themselves. ”

“ Some of these have very long tails, some none; some are dog-faced, others tolerably round-faced; but there are so many transitions from one to the other, and such a general agreement in structure, that they are now considered to form a very natural family. Their range is more extensive than any other family of Quadrumana, since they not only occur in every part of the Ethiopian and Oriental regions, but enter the Palæarctic region in the east and west, and the Australian region as far as the islands of Timor and Batchian. ”

“ Only the briefest reference can here be made to a few of the numerous contributions on the subject of man's relationship to the animals below him. The rapidly-accumulating proofs of the close relation existing between man and the quadrumana, make interesting every fact, however trivial, in regard to the structure and habits of the higher apes. ”

“ The comparative definiteness of these hairy patches, as of the callosities in the monkeys, stamps them at once as of sexual origin. The poll is probably derived by us from some of our anthropoid ancestors, as crests of hair frequently appear upon the heads of the quadrumana. But as man gradually became more erect and less forestine, as he took to haunting open plains and living more in the sunlight, the existence of such a natural covering, as a protection from excessive heat and light upon the head, would doubtless prove of advantage to him ”

“ The mammal fauna of the Indian region of Asia is much more highly developed than that of the Palaearctic. The Quadrumana are represented by several peculiar genera, amongst which are Semnopithecus, Hylobates and Simia. ”

“ Setting aside the whole of Oceania, we only find, as common to both the Old and the New World, two or three ruminants, perhaps a bear, a fox and a wolf. All these species are, moreover, more or less [170] polar, and are wanting in the central regions of the two worlds. Finally, there is not one species of cheiroptera or quadrumana which is indigenous both in America and the Old World.
Beyond those species which man has disseminated by making them follow his migrations, animals and plants evidently occupy their natural area, wherein lies the centre from which they have spread. ”

“ It is fairly well developed in the two lower divisions of the mammalian series, namely, in the monotremata and marsupials, and in some higher mammals, as in the walrus. But in man, the quadrumana, and most other mammals, it exists, as is admitted by all anatomists, as a mere rudiment, called the semilunar fold. ”

“ When clad as I said, they were extremely like men. Their heads were quite human in intelligence, but their lower limbs showed as much resemblance to the carnivora as the human limbs do to the quadrumana. ”

“ In man, the superior member is not at all fit for walking; and the inferior, used for locomotion, as in the two preceding groups, also preserves its faculty of prehension: observation proves this as well as anatomy.
We see that there again; as everywhere else in an organic point of view, the anthropomorphous quadrumana are a veritable transition from man to the other families of apes. It has been proposed to extend the signification of the word hand, and to apply it to every terminal extremity of a member capable of seizing anything, including the paw of the lemur and the claws of the parrot. ”

“ In the western islands almost the only instance of a group peculiar to Australia and the eastern islands is the Megapodius in North-west Borneo. Not one of the Australian forms of Mammalia passes the limits of the region. On the other hand, Quadrumana occur in Celebes, Batchian, Lombock, and perhaps Timor ”

“ It is, however, still more unphilosophical to infer from a single extinct species of this order, obtained in a latitude far from the tropics, that the Eocene Quadrumana had not attained as high a grade of organization as those of our own times, when the naturalist is acquainted with all, or nearly all, the species of monkeys, apes and orangs which are contemporary with man. ”

“ At the same time it is rich in animal and plant types of its own, especially the latter, and is considered one of the best fields in South America for the student and collector. The fauna is essentially tropical, though a few species characteristic of colder regions are to be found in the higher Andes. Of the Quadrumana there are at least seventeen distinct species, and this number may be increased after a thorough exploration of the forested eastern plains. They are all arboreal in habit, and are to be found throughout the forested lowlands and lower mountain slopes. ”

“ Turning now to the nearest allies of men, and therefore to the best representatives of our early progenitors, we find that the hands of the Quadrumana are constructed on the same general pattern as our own, but are far less perfectly adapted for diversified uses. Their hands do not serve for locomotion so well as the feet of a dog; as may be seen in such monkeys as the chimpanzee and orang, which walk on the outer margins of the palms, or on the knuckles. ”

“ In the protoplasts of his species the mere zoologist sees but so many naked bipeds, with the capabilities, indeed, of working out for their future behoof the essentials of clothing, the use of fire, and the like, but in the first instance unfit for any climate except the mildest, and incapable of sustenance on any soil except the most luxuriant. He consequently fixes upon the tropics as the cradle of our race; and those who assume the lineal descent of the human species from the quadrumana fix upon those intertropical points which are the habitats of the anthropomorphic apes. ”

“ Among other things, as became my elevation of mind, I had wondered many times why this singular quadruped—horse I will not call it—should bear such a remarkable name. It appeared to be the height of idiosyncrasy to bestow upon a four-footed beast a name which could only have been familiar to scholars. And so, to appease my curiosity and to change the unlucky tenor of our discourse, I said, “Wherefore, kind and gracious Sir Richard Pendragon, do you call your four-footed quadruped by the name of Melanto? Is not the name passing odd for a shaggy animal with a long tail?” ”

“ The quadrupeds, on the contrary, existing in a medium state, equally below the airy heights, as above the deep abyss of the waters—sharing with man the possession and sovereignty of the earth—seem to hold the middle place between two extremes. They have neither the ardor nor petulance of the bird, the lower sensibility of the fish, nor the apathy of the reptile; but, living as they do on a dry and firm soil, their nature has received more consistency, and their frame more solidity. The locomotion of the quadruped has not the rapidity of flight, nor the nimbleness of swimming ”

“ Imagine to yourself a small, withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin hands, large brown eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and standing up like a half-worn scrubbing-brush—total weight in my clothes, nine stone six—and you will get a very fair idea of Allan Quatermain, commonly called Hunter Quatermain, or by the natives 'Macumazahn'—anglice, he who keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a sharp fellow who is not to be taken in. ”