e hands over the head in rain. But this explanation cannot
be maintained when we consider that this disposition of the hair is
widely distributed among the most different mammals, being found in
the dog, in the sloth, and in many of the lower monkeys.

After further careful analysis of the anatomical characters Darwin
reaches the conclusion that the New World monkeys (Platyrrhine) may be
excluded from the genealogical tree altogether, but that man is an
offshoot from the Old World monkeys (Catarrhine) whose progenitors
existed as far back as the Miocene period. Among these Old World
monkeys the forms to which man shows the greatest resemblance are the
anthropoid apes, which, like him, possess neither tail nor ischial
callosities. The platyrrhine and catarrhine monkeys have their
primitive ancestor among extinct forms of the Lemuridae. Darwin also
touches on the question of the original home of the human race and
supposes that it may have been in Africa, because it is there that
man's nearest relatives, the gorilla and the chimpanzee, are found.
But he regards speculation on this point as useless. It is remarkable
that, in this connection, Darwin regards the loss of the hair-covering
in man as having some relation to a warm climate, while elsewhere he
is inclined to make sexual selection responsible for it. Darwin
recognises the great gap between man and his nearest relatives, but
similar gaps exist at other parts of the mammalian genealogical tree:
the allied forms have become extinct. After the extermination of the
lower races of mankind, on the one hand, and of the anthropoid apes on
the other, which will undoubtedly take place, the gulf will be greater
than ever, since the baboons will then bound it on the one side, and
the white races on the other. Little weight need be attached to the
lack of fossil remains to fill up this gap, since the discovery of
these depends upon chance. The last part of the chapter is devoted to
a discussion of the earlier stages in the genealogy of man. Here
Darwin accepts in the main the genealogical tree, which had meantime
been published by Haeckel, who traces the pedigree back through
Monotrems, Reptiles, Amphibians, and Fishes, to Amphioxus.

Then follows an attempt to reconstruct, from the atavistic characters,
a picture of our primitive ancestor who was undoubtedly an arboreal
animal. The occurrence of rudiments of parts in one sex which only
come to full development in the other is