. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. THE COLOBl. 101 the creatures which have rudimentary organs. The four-legged ruminating or cud-chewing animals have bones and feet of peculiar arrangeinent, and there is no dithculty in at once knowing a ruminant by its bones. Now, in former ages, and before there was a trace of man on the globe, thei-e were ruminants, as known by theii- bones found in strata or deposits, and they had incisor teeth in their upper jaws when full gi-own, and not only when in the calf condition. The in- ference to be drawn is, that the modern Oxen ai-e the de
. Cassell's natural history. Animals; Animal behavior. THE COLOBl. 101 the creatures which have rudimentary organs. The four-legged ruminating or cud-chewing animals have bones and feet of peculiar arrangeinent, and there is no dithculty in at once knowing a ruminant by its bones. Now, in former ages, and before there was a trace of man on the globe, thei-e were ruminants, as known by theii- bones found in strata or deposits, and they had incisor teeth in their upper jaws when full gi-own, and not only when in the calf condition. The in- ference to be drawn is, that the modern Oxen ai-e the descendants of those ancient forms with incisor teeth, and that disuse, probably produced by the introduction of grass-feeding on a gi-and scale, instead of leaf- and bud-nibbling, gradually diminished the strength and pei-manence of the front upper teeth, and Unally only left the simple traces of them which we have mentioned. Disuse by ancestral forms, by the forefathers, and the carrying down the weakened and atrophied state of the structiu-e or organs,. are the most important considerations in any attempt at the explanation of the .seeming paradox. In endeavoui-ing to apply this style of reasoning to the Colobos gi-oup—the Semnopitheci without thumbs —it must be asked, is there any evidence of the great antiquity of these Monkeys, and are there any evidences of anything wi-ong about the thumbs of their Asiatic allies ? It is remarkable, and bears strongly upon this point, that some of the fossil remains of animals found in India, on the flanks of the Himalayan Mountains, have a closer resemblance to a large Semnopithecus Monkey than to any other, and to one belonging to a kind much like the Entellus. The bony remains were found in collections of shingle, clay, and sand of gi-eat depth, and which included also the remains of the bones of Elephants, Giraffes, Hippopotamid», Crocodiles, and fresh- water Tortoises, and other land and fresh-water creatures. The deposits had ac
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