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Updated: June 28, 2025
We see the result only, we cannot trace the exact process; but we have as an outcome the adoption of a method of locomotion different from that of all other tree-dwellers, the forefoot developing into the hand with its opposable thumb, and the hindfoot gaining a similar grasping power in the toes.
The thumb ceases to be opposable in the American monkeys; is reduced to a mere rudiment covered by the skin in the Spider Monkey; and is directed forwards and armed with a curved claw like the other digits, in the Marmosets so that, in all these cases, there can be no doubt but that the hand is more different from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's hand is from Man's.
The thumb ceases to be opposable in the American monkeys; is reduced to a mere rudiment covered by the skin in the Spider Monkey; and is directed forwards and armed with a curved claw like the other digits, in the Marmosets so that, in all these cases, there can be no doubt but that the hand is more different from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's hand is from Man's.
They have opposable thumbs, which make their feet almost into hands; they have prehensile tails, by which they hang from branches in true monkey fashion; they lead an arboreal omnivorous existence; they feed off fruits, birds' eggs, insects, and roots; and altogether they are just active, cunning, intelligent, tree-haunting marsupial spider-monkeys.
In such conflicts they bite viciously, tear each other with their hooks, and scream incessantly, till, taking to flight, the persecuted one reaches some place of safety, where he hangs by one foot, and grasping the fruit he has secured in the claws and opposable thumb of the other, he hastily reduces it to lumps, with which he stuffs his cheek pouches till they become distended like those of a monkey; then suspended in safety, he commences to chew and suck the pieces, rejecting the refuse with his tongue.
The nails, except those of the hind thumbs, are long and claw-shaped like those of squirrels, and the thumbs of the fore extremities, or hands, are not opposable to the other fingers. I do not mean to imply that they have a near relationship to squirrels, which belong to the Rodents, an inferior order of mammals; their resemblance to those animals is merely a superficial one.
The greatest of these are, that the feet of the anthropoid or man-like apes, as well as those of all monkeys, are formed like hands, with large opposable thumbs fitted to grasp the branches of trees, but unsuitable for erect walking, while the hands have weak, small thumbs, but very long and powerful fingers, forming a hook, rather than a hand, adapted for climbing up trees and suspending the whole weight from horizontal branches.
But in the succeeding age they seem to disappear from the eastern continent, though in the western, thanks to their hand-like feet, opposable thumb, and tree-haunting life, they still drag out a precarious existence in many forms from Virginia to Chili, and from Brazil to California.
We had devised two weapons to fight it; a large and specially fitted Crookes tube operated by powerful storage batteries and provided with peculiar screens and reflectors, in case it proved intangible and opposable only by vigorously destructive ether radiations, and a pair of military flame-throwers of the sort used in the World War, in case it proved partly material and susceptible of mechanical destruction for like the superstitious Exeter rustics, we were prepared to burn the thing's heart out if heart existed to burn.
The thumb of the hands is not opposable, and instead of nails they have sharp compressed claws. These diminutive monkeys have long, non-prehensile tails, and they have a silky fur often of varied and beautiful colors.
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