Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/86

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58
EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN.
[CHAP. III.

developed of the Quadrumana. It is considered, however, by Professor Gervais[1] and Dr. Forsyth Major to indicate an extinct genus, Pliopithecus, allied to the anthropoid apes, and differing in the form and proportions of its teeth from that of the true Gibbons.

In Fig. 8 the latter animal is taken to indicate the probable appearance of the fossil. A second ape, Dryopithecus Fontani,[2] found in association with oak-trunks at Saint Gaudens, Haute Garonne, is considered by Prof. Lartet to be one of the anthropoid apes, rivalling man in size, and by Prof. Owen[3] to be allied to the Pliopithecus and living gibbons. A third ape, found at Steinheim in Wurtemberg, is described by Prof. Fraas[4] as a species of Colobus (C. grandævus); while a fourth, Oreopithecus, found in the lignites of Monte Bamboli, is stated by Prof. Gervais[5] to be allied to the anthropoid apes, the macaques and the baboons. {{dhr}]

Mid Meiocene Birds.

The mid Meiocene birds identified by Prof. Milne--

  1. Lartet, Notice sur la Colline de Sansan, Auch, 1851. Gervais, Zool. et Pal. Francaises, p. 8. See Forsyth Major, Actes de la Société Italienne des Sc. Nat. xv. 1872. Rütimeyer, quoted by Heer, Le Monde Primatif en Suisse.
  2. Lartet, Comptes Rendus, xliii. 1856. The late development of the wisdom tooth or last molar, considered by Professor Lartet to be a character common to this animal and man, is also met with, as Dr. Forsyth Major observes, in the Macacus rhesus. It has not, therefore, the importance which is attached to it both by Professor Lartet and Sir Charles Lyell (Student's Elements, p. 196). See also Professor Gaudry's interesting analysis of the characters of this jaw, Sur les Enchainements, p. 237 et seq.
  3. Owen, Proceed. Zool. Lond. xxvi. 1859, p. 18.
  4. Fraas, Die Fauna von Steinheim Wurtemberg Nature. Jahreshefte, xxvi. 1870, p. 145.
  5. Zool. et Pal. 2d ser. 4to, p. 9.