A Hand-book to the Primates

9781465588920

225 pages

Library of Alexandria

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Overview

The great increase in our knowledge of animals which has taken place since the volume on Monkeys was published in "Jardine's Naturalist's Library" some sixty years ago, cannot be better illustrated than by the fact that our excellent contributor, Dr. H. O. Forbes, has found it impossible to compress that knowledge into a single volume of the present issue. There is, moreover, no Museum which contains such a complete series of skins of the Primates, as to render a perfect "monograph" of the Order possible. Dr. Forbes has endeavoured in these volumes to bring the subject up to date, and has devoted some years of study to the two which now appear under his name, and he has had the great advantage of having seen many of the species of which these volumes treat, in a state of nature. If diligent research and patient work, combined with a sound anatomical knowledge and an acquaintance with many species of Monkeys in their natural habitat, avail anything, then these volumes should present to the student a more concise epitome of the characteristics of the Primates than any other essay yet offered to the public. It has been found impossible to reproduce any of the plates in the old "Naturalist's Library" of Jardine. They would have formed, with appropriate inscriptions, a very good instalment of a series of "Comic Natural History" volumes, as they were, in fact, nothing but a set of extraordinary caricatures of Monkeys. I have, therefore, again to acknowledge the liberality of the publishers, in adopting my suggestion that a perfectly new set of illustrations should be prepared. These have been executed by Mr. J. G. Keulemans, with a result, I hope, that will satisfy the reader.