'Pygmie' had thirteen pair of ribs and five lumbar
vertebrae. The question of the curves of the spinal column in the Apes
requires further investigation.) Cuvier notes the same number in a
'Hylobates'. On the other hand, among the lower Apes, many possess
twelve dorsal and six or seven lumbar vertebrae; the Douroucouli has
fourteen dorsal and eight lumbar, and a Lemur ('Stenops tardigradus')
has fifteen dorsal and nine lumbar vertebrae.

The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole, differs from that
of Man in the less marked character of its curves, especially in the
slighter convexity of the lumbar region. Nevertheless, the curves are
present, and are quite obvious in young skeletons of the Gorilla and
Chimpanzee which have been prepared without removal of the ligaments. In
young Orangs similarly preserved, on the other hand, the spinal column
is either straight, or even concave forwards, throughout the lumbar
region.

Whether we take these characters then, or such minor ones as those which
are derivable from the proportional length of the spines of the cervical
vertebrae, and the like, there is no doubt whatsoever as to the marked
difference between Man and the Gorilla; but there is as little, that
equally marked differences, of the very same order, obtain between the
Gorilla and the lower Apes.

The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man is a strikingly human
part of his organization; the expanded haunch bones affording support
for his viscera during his habitually erect posture, and giving space
for the attachment of the great muscles which enable him to assume and
to preserve that attitude. In these respects the pelvis of the Gorilla
differs very considerably from his (Figure 15). But go no lower than
the Gibbon, and see how vastly more he differs from the Gorilla than the
latter does from Man, even in this structure. Look at the flat, narrow
haunch bones--the long and narrow passage--the coarse, outwardly curved,
ischiatic prominences on which the Gibbon habitually rests, and which
are coated by the so-called "callosities," dense patches of skin, wholly
absent in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, and in the Orang, as in Man!

In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the difference becomes more
striking still, the pelvis acquiring an altogether quadrupedal
character.

But now let us turn to a nobler and more characteristic organ--that
by which the human frame seems to be, and indeed is, so strongly
distin