'Manus duæ, pedes bini,' therefore, is no distinctive character of man; but, nevertheless, we may quite agree with all but the two last paragraphs of the following statement by M. St. Hilaire, if for 'hands' we read "prehensile terminal limb segments":

"Whence it follows that the existence of posterior 'hands,' when there is only one pair, or of more perfect 'hands' on the posterior limbs when there are two pair, is a character common to a great number of Mammals, of very different families. A single being presents us with the inverse arrangement; and the creature which is distinguished by forming so rare and remarkable an exception, the creature which in this respect stands alone, is Man.

"And by this circumstance the views of those authors who have attributed to the human group the value of a family, and not merely of a genus, are justified still more definitely than by the character derived from the vertical attitude. In almost every other respect, man is far nearer the apes than the apes are to the lemurs, and than these are to the lowest Quadrumana. We shall even see that, under many aspects, he becomes confounded, organically, with the first mentioned. By the very characteristic conformation of his extremities, he is, on the other hand, far more distant from the apes than the latter are, not only from the lemurs and lowest Primates, but even from a great number of Marsupials.

"So that here we find, on the one hand, man by himself-on the other, and separated from him by a vast interval, all the animals with hands.""-(P. 208.)

In the last paragraphs here cited, M. St. Hilaire appears to us to have very greatly exaggerated the value of the deviation of the foot of man from that of the apes; for the differences between the foot of man and that of the chimpanzee, or that of the gorilla, are assuredly less than those between the foot of any Simian or Prosimian and that of Galeopithecus; and the term "vast interval" is hardly applicable to a separation which, as M. St. Hilaire expressly states, is only sufficient to justify the separation of Man as a distinct family.

M. St. Hilaire next considers the characters of the teeth of man, adverting to the well-known fact that the principal difference from the dentition of the apes lies in the shortness of the canines, and the consequent absence of that diastema, or interval between the incisors and canine in the upper jaw, and the premolars and canine in the lower jaw, which is present in the apes; and repeating the statement of Cuvier, that a similar equality and serial continuity of the teeth are only to be met with in the Anoplotherium. However, an approximation to these characters is found also in some of the Insectivora, animals far more closely allied to the Primates than is the fossil ungulate.

The singular peculiarities of the distribution of the hair on the human body-a distribution which is unique in the animal kingdom -are next discussed; and it is shown that, in this respect even, the higher apes are more similar to man than to the lower apes. The argument which follows (sect. xi. p. 218) bears so definitely upon a question which has been largely discussed in the pages of this Review, that we must give it in full:

:

"The characters derived from the equality and the contiguity of the teeth and the partial nudity of the skin are far from being as important as those which preceded them, but they are very marked: they place man, in two additional respects, in very clear opposition with the animals whose organization most closely approaches

his. For this reason they may very usefully be added to the definition of the human family.

"On the contrary, the other distinctive characters of man mentioned or indicated by authors are no longer distinctive and absolute, but are merely relative; are differences of degree and not of kind.

"It is no longer a question of anatomical or physical features, possessed by man and not by the apes, or by the apes and not by man, but of features common to man and to a part of, or even to all, apes; merely more or less marked in him than in them. So that these features would tend, if they existed alone, to make of Man, considered in a classificatory aspect, not a family apart from all animals, but the first genus of the family of apes. By the most of them he would be to the Chimpanzees and to the Orangs, what these are to the Cercopitheci and Macaci, and these to the lower apes; an additional term at the head of a common series.

"The facts of this second order, important as many of them may be in a physiological point of view, are far less so than the foregoing in their taxonomic aspect, and we may be permitted to pass more rapidly over them; indeed to restrict ourselves to the enumeration of those which authors have considered as particularly characteristic."

Those of our readers who have followed the controversy respecting the brain of Apes and Man, if that can be dignified by the name of controversy where all the facts are on one side and mere empty assertion on the other, will be amused on discovering the nature of the first of these " secondary facts" which M. St. Hilaire treats so cavalierly.

"The first, the most important of all, so important that one would be inclined, at first sight, to consider them as the characteristics par excellence of man, are those presented by the encephalon, particularly the cerebral hemispheres. If there is an abyss between the intelligence of man and that of the brute, ought not a large interval to exist between his cerebral characters and those of animals? Such a conclusion would certainly follow very logically from the doctrines held by many physiologists, regarding the functions of the brain, and particularly of the convolutions, but it is a conclusion, most distinctly refuted by the comparative examination of man and animals. Here, indeed, the facts of our cerebral structure exhibit, not a specially and exclusively human structure, but a higher degree of an organization which is found in the apes; merely relative, instead of absolute differences.

"The great development of the anterior cerebral lobes and of the corpus callosum, the multitude of the convolutions and sulci, the depth of the latter and consequently the considerable extent of the surface of the cerebrum, are, according to authors, the five principal characters by which the human brain is particularly distinguished. These are, in fact, so many indubitable marks of the superiority of man over animals; those species which, in the totality of their organization, resemble him most, are inferior to him in these respects. But are they very inferior? Assuredly I shall not go so far as to say, with Bory de St. Vincent, that between the brain of the Orang and that of Man there exist "no more essential differences than those which obtain between the same parts in different individuals of our own species;" a conclusion which this naturalist, too ready to interpret facts according to his own views, professes to draw from the beautiful researches of Tiedemann on the encephalon of the Orang, as compared with that of Man. But that which is certain, which results not merely from Tiedemann's observations, but from those of M. Serres and of all the masters of science; from all those also which have been made of late, and to which I have had the advantage of being able to add my own upon many points; is this proposition, which no one will confound with the assertion of Bory St. Vincent: by so much as, in the development of the anterior cerebral lobes, of the corpus callosum, of the convolutions and the extent of his cerebral surface, Man surpasses even the highest apes; by so much are these, and chiefly the Orang, superior in the same respects to the first apes of the second tribe (Cynopithe

ciens) which, in their turn, are similarly superior to the rest. There is an almost continuous series of modifications, of degradations, which are the more diverse, as they are far from always affecting to a similar degree the development of the anterior lobe, and that of the corpus callosum, or the condition of the convolutions. It may and does happen, that these remain very numerous in a cerebrum with its anterior lobes and corpus callosum more or less reduced; or, on the other hand, they may be more or less obsolete in a brain which is still remarkable for its general development, for the extent of its corpus callosum, and the volume of its anterior lobes. This last combination is that presented by many apes of the third tribe (Cebiens), especially, and more than by any other genus of the same group, by the Saimiris, which are so remarkable for the richness of their cerebral development. The same combination is found, but carried to a still greater excess, in all the apes of the fourth tribe (Hapaliens). In the Marmosets the brain is, at the same time, greatly developed as a whole (less however than in the Saimiris) and is devoid of convolutions; it is one of the richest brains in one direction, one of the poorest in the other.

"These facts have not yet been reduced to a law, either for the whole brain, or for the corpus callosum, or for the anterior lobes; but their connexion is easily apprehended, so far as the convolutions are concerned. If for the too complex comparison of generic differences, we substitute that of the general differences between one tribe and another, the following is the immediate result:-In Man, the convolutions are very numerous and are separated by deep sulci; in the first tribe (Simiens) they are less numerous than in Man, more numerous than in the second; in the second tribe (Cynopitheciens) they are more numerous than in the third (Cebiens); in which the cerebral gyri become more and more scanty, from the Ateles and the Cebi to the Saimiris and the Callitriches; exhibiting a gradual progress towards the fourth tribe (Hapaliens) which is distinctly characterized by the smoothness of the brain.

"There is, then, a decrease in the convolutions in a serial order, from Man to the first, second, third, and fourth tribes; which in this point of view constitute five terms of one and the same very regular series, from the maximum of the development of the convolutions observed in Man, to their complete disappearance in the Marmosetsand this series ends at the exact point, where the family of the Lemurida succeeds to that of the Apes; a distinct series in which we see (in a brain in other respects very differently constructed), the convolutions re-appear at the upper end of the scale, in the Indri and the Lemurs, to disappear anew, at the lower end, in Microcebus.

"Whence flows this consequence, that may and will be better defined, but will not be rendered more certain by future investigations: In any classification based on the constitution of the brain and particularly on the condition of the convolutions, two general divisions must be established among the Primates, one for man and all the apes, the other for the Lemurida; and in the former two sub-divisions: man and the apes with convolntions; then the apes with smooth brains.

"In other words, man is, in this respect, much nearer the higher Apes, than these are, not merely to the Lemurs, but even to the lower types of their own family."

After this clear and, upon the whole, just statement of the cerebral relations of man to the apes, M. St. Hilaire takes up the question of the facial angle. This angle, measured by the method of Geoffroy and Cuvier, he affirms to become as small as 64° in a South African people, the Makoias; which is 6o less than the limit ordinarily assigned to it in the human species. But in the adult Saimiri the facial angle measured in the same way amounts, he affirms, to 65°, and is but a few degrees less in the Gibbons and the Semnopitheci, among the old world apes; in Cebus, Ateles, Eriodes, Lagothrix, Callithrix and Nyctipithecus among the apes of the new world. After which, says M. St. Hilaire :

"It descends to about 50o in the Cercopitheci (a few degrees more or less according

to the species) to 40° in the Chimpanzee, to less than 40° in the Gorilla, to about 35o in the Orang. So that this last ape, this man of the woods,' whose pretended facial angle of 63° or 64° (which it really possesses when young) led to its being regarded as the highest of the apes, (such as it really is in virtue of its cerebral characters), here occupies one of the lowest places. It is almost on the same level as the Theropithecus, and has below it only the Cynopithecus and the Cynocephalus; those dogheaded apes, as the ancients called them; a name justified by their facial angle of 30°, that of a true Carnivore and almost that of a Rodent. Whence it follows that, in this respect, there is a passage, by almost insensible gradations, from the most civilized and orthognathous European, not only to the most prognathous negro, but to those very apes, which have the most prominent muzzles. A continuous series of variations, where one is astounded to see Man come in contact with the brute, considering how great is the distance from the highest apes to the lowest, and how great the interval between ourselves and the other races of mankind. From Saimiri to Cynocephalus there is 35° difference, from the European to the Makoia 16° to 18°, and almost 21° if we select one of those beautiful Caucasian skulls of 85° measured by Camper and by Cuvier.”

In the same manner M. St. Hilaire shows that, in the development of the forehead and that of the chin, in the position of the occipital foramen, and in the obliteration of the intermaxillary suture, the skull of man is connected with that of the apes, which differ most widely from him, by intermediate gradations, while, on the other hand, he fully details the important characters in which Man and the higher apes agree. Our space, however, allows us to follow our author no further in this argument, especially as it still remains our duty to explain why, when he has taken these pains to demonstrate that Man, regarded structurally, forms only a family of the Primates, M. St. Hilaire nevertheless conceives himself bound to regard Man as a kingdom, equal in distinctness to Plantæ or Animalia. And here we confess ourselves somewhat at a loss; for while the reasonings we have detailed above are full (occupying as we have said sixty pages) clear in thought, and precise in expression, the argument leading to the latter conclusion is of the briefest, taking up not more than six pages of writing, whose style is as diffuse as its intellectual texture is loose.

Looked at structurally, M. St. Hilaire repeats, in this section, Man can constitute merely a family of the Primates, of that order of mammals in which the apes and lemurs form the other families. But then, he adds, the kingdoms of nature are distinguished from one one another by their faculties and not by their structure.

"It is by its peculiar faculties, which cease only when animality ends, and only by them, that the animal differs essentially from the plant and rises so high above it as to constitute a distinct kingdom: similarly it is by his faculties, so incomparably higher, by the addition of intellectual and moral faculties to the faculty of sensation and the faculty of motion, that Man in his turn separates himself from the animal kingdom and constitutes above it, the supreme division of nature, the Human Kingdom." p. 260.

It seems almost incredible that a man of science should base si ch a conclusion upon such an argument as this, which must obviously be at once invalidated by the admission, that animals possess even a trace of intellect, or a rudiment of moral faculty. But the comparison

of a moderately intelligent and affectionate dog with a human infant before it has acquired speech, must abundantly convince any unprejudiced person, that the same moral and intellectual faculties are working in both; that in whatever sense the child can be said to possess reason, or to be capable of right and wrong, his four-footed playmate has a claim to a humbler share of the same distinctions. However, on this point, the words of a writer, with whom we have not always the good fortune to find ourselves in such entire agreement, so amply express our convictions, and, if true, are so entirely subversive of the proposition to establish a "Règne humain," that we may fitly conclude this article with them:

:

"Not being able to appreciate, or conceive of, the distinction between the psychical phenomena of a Chimpanzee and of a Boschisman, or of an Aztec, with arrested brain growth, as being of a nature so essential as to preclude a comparison between them, or as being other than a difference of degree, I cannot shut my eyes to the significance of that all-pervading similitude of structure-every tooth, every bone strictly homologous-which makes the determination of the difference between Homo and Pithecus the anatomist's difficulty."

II. THE COLLECTIONS OF THE NOVARA EXPEDITION. DIE AUSBEUTE DER OESTERREICHISCHEN NATURFORSCHER AN SÄUGETHIEREN UND REPTILIEN WÄHREND DER WELTUMSEGELUNG SR MAJESTÄT FREGATTE NOVARA. Von Dr. L. J. Fitzinger. THIS paper, which has been recently read by Dr. Fitzinger, before the Academy of Sciences at Vienna, and is printed in their "Sitzungsberichte," (Vol. XLII.) gives a resumé of the collections made by the two Zoologists (Messrs. Zelebor and v. Frauenfield) attached to the Novara expedition, in the classes of Mammals and Reptiles. The determination of the species in these sections of the Vertebrates, has been assigned to Dr. Fitzinger and Herr Zelebor; the investigation of the Fishes is stated to have been entrusted to Professor Kner; and Herr von Pelzeln, we believe, has been for some time past engaged in working out the series of Birds.

Of Mammals 440 individual specimens were collected during the expedition, belonging to 176 different species, of which a list, containing the names without descriptions and localities, is appended. Among these are 11 considered to be hitherto undescribed, namely, seven Bats, three Rodents and one Armadillo, Of these 11 species, no less than sixt are from the Nicobar Islands-one of the most novel and interesting localities visited by the expedition. Our previous

* Professor Owen " On the Characters, &c. of the class Mammalia," Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, vol. ii. No. 5, 1857, p. 20, Note.

+ Pteropus nicobaricus; Pachysoma giganteum; Pachysoma scherzeri; Vesperugo nicobaricus; Mus novara; Mus palmarum.