The second section, or the _Platyrhines_, may be divided into those: 1, with prehensile tails; and 2, those with the tails not prehensile; and 3, those whose tail is furry. This great array of manikins (whence they get their name of Monkey--the word _homunculus_, “a sorry little fellow,” having possibly something to do with it) is formed by creatures next to man, the highest in the scale of animals. They could be very readily distinguished from all others, were it not for the existence of a group of beings which resemble them in some particulars. These are the next lowest in the scale, and they have thumbs on the hands and thumb-toes on the feet, but their fur is woolly, and they are cat-like in shape. They are called the Lemurs, or by some zoologists “Half Apes.” These Lemurs only resemble in a slight degree some of the Monkeys of the New World, but they are more like them than any other animals, and therefore are classified with them. [Illustration: GROUP OF LEMURS. (From the _Transactions of the Zoological Society_.)] The order of beings to which these various creatures belong is known by the name of “Primates,” which implies the rank they hold in the scale of creation. Man stands first, very distinct in his intellectual powers and spiritual gifts from the most intelligent of the Quadrumana and as much superior to them in his construction. Then comes the world of Monkeys, the “man-shaped” at the head, and the little marmosets, with furry tails, at the bottom of the array, and linked on to these are the Half Apes or Lemurs. They all form a great order of the animal kingdom which stands first and at the head of all other orders of the animal world. But what would the old Monkeys whose bones have been dug out of strata which are older than the Himalayan mountains and the Alps say could they visit such a collection as that suggested? They would recognise their fellow-monkeys, but would look upon them as pigmies in size. They would be few in number, for though Monkeys go the way of all flesh very rapidly, skeletons of them are very rarely found, so rarely indeed that many Indians believe that the other Monkeys bury them. The fact is, that there are plenty of Jackals, to say nothing of birds of prey, ready to snap up a dead, dying, or invalid Ape, and to turn its protoplasm into their own. Some few tumble into holes, and may be preserved there, and probably that was how the old bones were hidden up. The old kinds resembled the new more or less, but for the most part those which have been carefully examined were larger than the corresponding modern species. They were as great Apes in their nature as are the present, and had this advantage, that their roaming ground was wider, for they lived in Europe as well as in the countries where their modern representatives are found. Nevertheless, even in those old days the Catarhines were kept to the Old World, and the Platyrhines enlivened the American forests alone.