A Natural History for Young People: Our Animal Friends in Their Native Homes: including mammals, birds and fishesHumphreys, Phebe Westcott
History
A Natural History for Young People: Our Animal Friends in Their Native Homes: including mammals, birds and fishes
Humphreys, Phebe Westcott
Natural history -- Juvenile literature
Their arms are also very much longer than ours, in proportion to the
rest of the body, and in some families the fingers will almost touch the
ground when the large animal is standing erect.
While the majority of the Monkey family have their faces covered with
hair like the rest of the body, others have what are known as “naked
faces,” with only a beard, or a fringe of whiskers about the chin and
throat, and some of these are comically like a human face.
The great family of Quadrumana is divided in various ways by different
Naturalists; but the easiest classification to keep in mind is the
grouping of five distinct Orders, each made up of small families.
The first order—The Tailless Apes—includes the Gorilla, the
Orang-Outang, and the Chimpanzee, and is called by some, Troglodytidae,
from the Greek word troglodytes, meaning one who hides in caverns.
Although this is a peculiarity of these Apes, this does not seem so good
a classification as that given by another Naturalist who calls these the
Anthropomorphous Monkeys because they so closely resemble the human
species; the word Anthropomorphous comes from two Greek words meaning
man and form, and signifies that which has the form of man.
The second order is the Simiadae—The Ape Monkeys—and the term comes from
the Greek word simos, meaning flat-nosed; these have oblong heads and
flat nostrils, and the same number of teeth as man, and many of them
have cheek pouches in which they stow away food for future use. A few of
the Simiadae are without tails, others have tails (of different lengths
in the different families), but none of them have prehensile tails, that
can be used to help them in climbing. All the different families
belonging to this order are natives of the Old World, and the most of
them are found in the forests and the mountainous districts of Western
Africa.
The third order—Cebidae—includes the American Monkeys; and they are
distinguished from the Monkeys of the Old World by having four more
grinding teeth, making thirty-six in all instead of thirty-two. These
American Monkeys have long tails and no cheek-pouches.
The fourth order—Lemuridae—includes the different Lemurs, and the word
comes from Latin lemur, a sprite, a night-walker, so called from their
habits of roaming about at night.
Some naturalists include in this order the Flying Cat, or Flying Lemur.
Others make a distinct fifth order of this species. Although they
resemble both a weasel and an ape, they have one peculiar formation that
does not belong to either of these; the long slender limbs are connected
by a broad, hairy membrane, which looks like a cloak when folded up, but
which expands and gives the appearance of wings when the animal is
springing from tree to tree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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