To form a judgment on this head, with reference to man we must glance at the classification of the Simiadæ. This family is divided by almost all naturalists into the Catarhine group, or Old World monkeys, all of which are characterised (as their name expresses) by the peculiar structure of their nostrils and by having four premolars in each jaw; and into the Platyrhine group or New World monkeys (including two very distinct sub-groups), all of which are characterised by differently-constructed nostrils and by having six premolars in each jaw. Some other small differences might be mentioned. Now man unquestionably belongs in his dentition, in the structure of his nostrils, and some other respects, to the Catarhine or Old World division; nor does he resemble the Platyrhines more closely than the Catarhines in any characters, excepting in a few of not much importance and apparently of an adaptive nature. Therefore it would be against all probability to suppose that some ancient New World species had varied, and had thus produced a man-like creature with all the distinctive characters proper to the Old World division; losing at the same time all its own distinctive characters. There can consequently hardly be a doubt that man is an offshoot from the Old World Simian stem; and that under a genealogical point of view, he must be classed with the Catarhine division.[265] The anthropomorphous apes, namely the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, and hylobates, are separated as a distinct sub-group from the other Old World monkeys by most naturalists. I am aware that Gratiolet, relying on the structure of the brain, does not admit the existence of this sub-group, and no doubt it is a broken one; thus the orang, as Mr. St. G. Mivart remarks,[266] “is one of the most peculiar and aberrant forms to be found in the Order.” The remaining, non-anthropomorphous, Old World monkeys, are again divided by some naturalists into two or three smaller sub-groups; the genus Semnopithecus, with its peculiar sacculated stomach, being the type of one such sub-group. But it appears from M. Gaudry’s wonderful discoveries in Attica, that during the Miocene period a form existed there, which connected Semnopithecus and Macacus; and this probably illustrates the manner in which the other and higher groups were once blended together.