fingers, forming a hook, rather than a hand, adapted for climbing up
trees and suspending the whole weight from horizontal branches. The
almost complete identity of the skeleton, however, and the close
similarity of the muscles and of all the internal organs, have produced
that striking and ludicrous resemblance to man, which every one
recognizes in these higher apes, and, in a less degree, in the whole
monkey tribe; the face and features, the motions, attitudes, and
gestures being often a strange caricature of humanity. Let us, then,
examine a little more closely in what the resemblance consists, and how
far, and to what extent, these animals really differ from us.

Besides the face, which is often wonderfully human--although the absence
of any protuberant nose gives it often a curiously infantile aspect,
monkeys, and especially apes, resemble us most closely in the hand and
arm. The hand has well-formed fingers, with nails, and the skin of the
palm is lined and furrowed like our own. The thumb is, however, smaller
and weaker than ours, and is not so much used in taking hold of
anything. The monkey's hand is, therefore, not so well adapted as that
of man for a variety of purposes, and cannot be applied with such
precision in holding small objects, while it is unsuitable for
performing delicate operations, such as tying a knot or writing with a
pen. A monkey does not take hold of a nut with its forefinger and thumb,
as we do, but grasps it between the fingers and the palm in a clumsy
way, just as a baby does before it has acquired the proper use of
its hand. Two groups of monkeys--one in Africa and one in South
America--have no thumbs on their hands, and yet they do not seem to be
in any respect inferior to other kinds which possess it. In most of the
American monkeys the thumb bends in the same direction as the fingers,
and in none is it so perfectly opposed to the fingers as our thumbs are;
and all these circumstances show that the hand of the monkey is, both