Page:The Last link.djvu/84

72 erect; in adaptation to the prevailing arboreal life, the arms are longer than the legs. The hair of the body is considerably more scanty than in the tailed monkeys. Troglodytes calvus, a species or variety of chimpanzee, is bald-headed. None of the recent genera of apes can lay claim to a place in the ancestry of mankind.

25. Stage of Pithecanthropi. Hitherto the only known representative is Pithecanthropus erectus, from the Upper Pliocene of Java. In adaptation to a more erect gait, the legs have become stronger and the hind-hand has been turned into a flat-soled walking 'foot.' The brain is considerably enlarged. Presumably it is still devoid of so-called articulate speech; this is indicated by the fact that children have to learn the language of their parents, and by the circumstance that comparative philology declares it impossible to reduce the chief human languages to anything like one common origin.

26. Man. Known with certainty to have