some are closely allied to the buzzard, woodcock, quail, pelican, ibis, flamingo, and hornbill of Africa.[1]
The Order Primates represented.
The upper Eocene forests of France were also haunted by representatives of the highest order of mammalia, or the Primates, which includes the families of man, the ape, and the lemur. The Adapis[2] of the Paris basin classified by Cuvier with the Anoplotheres, has recently been proved to be related to the last of these as well as to the hoofed quadrupeds and insectivores. To the same family also belong the Necrolemur,[3] discovered in the south of France, and the Cænopithecus[4] of Rütimeyer, found in Switzerland. The family is also proved[5] by Marsh and Cope to have inhabited the forests of North America, during the whole of the Eocene age in New Mexico, Wyoming, in Dakotah and Nebraska. None of these are identical with any living genus of lemur, but all
- ↑ Milne Edwards, Oiseaux Fossiles, ii. 543.
- ↑ Gervais, Zool. et Paléontologie Generale, p. 28 et seq. Journ. de Zool. i. 476. Phosphorites de Quercy, Tarn-et-Garonne-et-Lot.
- ↑ Filhol, Journ. de Zool. ii. 476. Gaudry, op. cit. iv. 521. Dell fortrie, op. cit. ii. 414. Gaudry, Les Enchainements, c. x.
- ↑ Rütimeyer, Ueber die Herkunft Unserer Thierwelt, 4to, 1867, p. 52. The fauna of the Bohnerze, in which the Cænopithecus was found, is considered by Heer to be of Mid Eocene age. It seems to me more probable that it represents also the Upper and Lower divisions. The local deposit of Bohnerze (iron ore) in Switzerland had begun in the Cretaceous age, and may have been continued throughout the Eocene period. The fauna contains characteristic forms of upper as well as Middle Eocene species.
- ↑ Marsh, Introduction and Succession of Vertebrate Life in America. American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1877. Cope, Hyopsodus. Report of U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories. Fossil Vertebrates, i. 75.
