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 (Fig. 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
distinguished from all others,--I mean the skull.
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