TARSIUS. (Animal after Burmeister, but modified from specimens in the British Museum.)
TARSIUS. (Animal after Burmeister, but modified from specimens in the British Museum.)
The cavity for the eye, or orbit, is unlike that of any other of the Lemuroida, for it is closed behind, and does not open there on to the temple; this is, therefore, very characteristic. But the globular-shaped head, although remarkable, is not quite so distinctive. The most striking anatomical feature, and indeed that which is observable in the outside shape, is the disproportionate length of the heel-bones and foot to the lower leg and thigh. It has a very small side-bone to the leg (fibula), and it does not reach to the ankle. Oddly enough, the third finger of the hand is the longest, and the second and fourth are nearly equal, presenting a difference with regard to the other Lemuroida. So that this small, active creature, with a Monkey-like appearance, has more resemblance to the Insectivora, and differs very considerably from the restof the group with which it is classified. The Spectre Tarsier, which inhabits the Oriental Archipelago and the Philippine Islands, has not been brought alive to England, but the late well-known naturalist, Mr. Cuming, gave the following description of its habits and peculiarities:—
“The Malmag is a small animal living under the roots of trees, particularly the large bamboo of these islands. Its principal food is Lizards, which it prefers to all other. When extremely hungry I have known it to eat Shrimps and Cockroaches, and give a great preference to those which are alive. It is very cleanly in its habits; never touches any kind of food that has been partly consumed, and never drinks a second time from the same water. It seldom makes any kind of noise, and when it does emit sound, it is a sharp, shrill call, and only once. On approaching it in its cage it fixes its large full eyes upon the party for a length of time, never moving a muscle; on drawing nearer or putting anything near it, it draws up the muscles of the face similar to a Monkey, and shows its beautiful, sharp, regular-set teeth. It laps water like a Cat, but very slowly, and eats much for so small an animal. It springs nearly two feet at a time. It sleeps much by day, is easily tamed, and becomes quite familiar, licking the hands and face, and creeping about your person, and is fond of being caressed. It has an aversion to the light, always retiring to the darkest place. It sits upon its posteriors when it feeds, holding its food by its fore-paws; when not hungry it will ogle the food for a considerable time. A male and female are generally seen together; the natives of these islands make sure of taking the second having secured the first. They are extremely scarce in the island of Bohol, and found only in the woods of Jagna and the island of Mindanao. It produces one at a time. I had the good fortune to procure a female without knowing her to be with young. One morning I was agreeably surprised to find she had brought forth. The young one appeared to be rather weak, but a perfect resemblance to its parent; the eyes were open and covered with hair. It soon gathered strength, and was constantly sucking betwixt its parent’s legs, and so well covered by its mother that I seldom could see anything of it but its tail. On the second day it began to creep about the cage with apparent strength, and even climb up to the top by the rods of which the cage was composed. Upon persons wishing to see the young one when covered over by the mother, we had to disturb her, upon which the dam would take the young one in its mouth, in the same manner as a Cat, and carry it about for some time. Several times I saw her, when not disturbed, trying to get out of the cage, with the young one in her mouth as before. It continued to live and increase in size for three weeks, when, unfortunately, some one trod upon the tail of the old one which was protruded through the cage, a circumstance which caused her death in a few days. The young one died a few hours after, and I put it in spirits.”
Another Madagascar Lemuroid remains to be noticed, and it ought to have been described with those of that great island; but the creature is so unlike all the others, and is so manifestly inferior in its Lemuroid character, and peculiar in its construction and habits, that it is necessary to place it at the end of all. Its position in the scale of classification is at the end of the Lemuroida, for although it has many of their anatomical characters, it resembles the Rodents, or Gnawers, in others. It is called
This is one of the most remarkable animals in the world, both on account of its peculiar Squirrel shape and Lemur-like construction, as well as on account of its habits. The animal was first kept and described by the traveller Sonnerat, who obtained a male and female from the west coast of Madagascar. He kept them on board ship and fed them on boiled rice for two months, when they died, and he used to remark that they used a finger of each hand to eat with, after the fashion of the Chinese, who use chopsticks. Having shown them to some of the natives of the east coast of the island, they were surprised, and denied that these curious-looking creatures belonged to their part of the country; moreover, they ejaculated “Aye-aye” on seeing them, and thus gave the familiar name to the breed. It is now known that the so-called Aye-Aye chiefly inhabits the forests of bamboos, which arenumerous in the interior of the island. They are rare animals, and live a solitary life, or are found in pairs, but they never associate in bands of several individuals. They are essentially nocturnal in their habits, for they sleep all the day long in the thick bunches of leaves of the bamboos in the most impenetrable part of the forests, and they are therefore rarely seen, and are only met with quite by accident. The Aye-Aye feeds on the pith of the bamboos, and on sugar-canes, but it also loves Beetles and their grubs as a change of food. During the dark nights it awakens the echoes of the forest with a kind of plaintive grunting, and jumps from bough to bough, and clambers up the trees with great agility and vivacity, examining the bark of old trees most carefully in order to find its favourite insect-food.
AYE-AYE. (After Owen, Trans. Zool. Soc., but modified.)
AYE-AYE. (After Owen, Trans. Zool. Soc., but modified.)
As daylight approaches, the Aye-Aye ceases its lively play and forest-roaming, and moves into the sombre shades of the densest foliage; there it avoids the light and the rays of the sun, and placing its head between the fore-feet, and encircling itself with its bushy tail, the now half-torpid creature sleeps on until the evening.
The Aye-Aye is about three feet in length, including the long tail, and there is a half Fox, half Lemur look about it, with a little of the Squirrel. The hind feet at first sight are like those of a Monkey, as are also the limbs; but the hands are not in keeping with the rest, for the fingers are of all kinds of lengths, and the middle one looks as if it were atrophied and wasted. A little care, however, proves that the ears, so widely open and spoon-shaped, and nearly naked, are larger than those ofthese animals, that the head is really broader than theirs, and that the furthest end of the muzzle surmounts a perfect lip which hides four great front teeth, two above and two below. The tail is a very prominent object, and is longer than the body; it is straight, very bushy, flexible, and is covered with long coarse hairs, being thicker at the end than at the root. All the rest of the body, except the ears, nose, and the palms of the feet and hands, which are naked, is covered with a fur that is dense and furry underneath, and long and hairy at the ends; and it is these long hairs which give the general tint to the animal. The prevailing tint is a deep fuscous approaching to black; there is a little dark-red underneath, and yellow-grey on the throat nearest the head. Everywhere the dark colour is relieved by long scattered white hairs, which are very conspicuous on the back. On the back and tail the hair attains the length of from three to four inches. It has widely-open staring eyes, and whilst it is lively enough in the dark, it looks dazed and stupid in daylight. As if to render the animal more curious than ever, the teats, or mammæ for suckling the young, are not on the breast, but in the lower part of the body, and close to the groins, there being one on each side.
The Aye-Aye, so strangely constructed, has been a great puzzle to naturalists, and there have been many keen debates about its natural history. It is a hundred years since Sonnerat stated that, although the Aye-Aye much resembles a Squirrel, “yet it differs therefrom by some essential characters, being also allied to the Lemur and the Monkey;” and in describing the fore-foot, he specifies the long slender joints of the skeleton-looking middle finger, which the animal, he says, “makes use of to draw out of holes in trees the worms which form its food.” Buffon saw the skin of one of these specimens obtained by Sonnerat, and concluded that it is more closely allied to the genus of Squirrels than to any other, and that it also has more relation to a kind of Jerboa. After describing the hind feet, Buffon remarks that the opposite character of the thumb with the flattened nail separates the Aye-Aye widely from the Squirrel, and that of all animals that have a flat great toe-thumb nail, the Tarsier, a kind of Jerboa, is that which most resembles it. He ranked the Aye-Aye with the Rodents, or Gnawers. Nevertheless, Cuvier considered it to be one of the Squirrels, and by no means ignoring the opposite hind thumb, he still believed it to be an unusual or anomalous kind, but he was greatly led by the belief that the animal gnawed wood invariably for the sake of its only food, the worms and grubs. About the same time a German (Schreber), by examining the limbs, decided that the Aye-Aye was a Lemur, and he called itLemur psilodactylus, or the “bare-fingered” Lemur; and after a while Cuvier obtained the skull and part of the limb-bones from Sonnerat’s specimen, and examined the first especially. Then the great front teeth of the Aye-Aye, and the space behind them, influenced the great anatomist, who saw that it had the teeth of Gnawers (Rodents), and skull like that of the Quadrumana, so he placed it in the list of doubtful animals. After his time, most anatomists considered the animal to be clearly allied to the Squirrels, and placed it amongst the Rodentia. But in 1859 Owen, from whose works the above notices of the progress of opinion on this subject have been taken, received an important letter from Dr. Sandwith, C. B., and a specimen of the Aye-Aye. The following letter explains the habits, and Owen subsequently described the anatomy of the animal, and placed it in its present position in the classification.
FOREST SCENE IN MADAGASCAR.
FOREST SCENE IN MADAGASCAR.
Dr. Sandwith wrote:—“After very great difficulty and much delay I have at length obtained a fine healthy male, a real Aye-Aye, and he is enjoying himself in a large cage which I had constructed for him. And now I have some questions to ask you. Do you want him dead or alive? It will, of course, be much easier to send his dead body home, if that will do; and if so, how am I to preserve him? If you want him alive you must tell me so without delay, as I think it would be dangerous to send him home in the cold season. I observe he is sensitive of cold, and likes to cover himself up in a piece of flannel, although the thermometer is now often 90° in the shade. He is a very interesting little animal, and from close observation I have learned his habits very correctly. On receiving him from Madagascar, I was told that he ate bananas, so of course I fed him on them, but tried him with other fruit. I found he liked dates, which was a grand discovery, supposing he be sent alive to England. Still I thought that those strong Rodent teeth, as large as those of a young Beaver, must have been intended for some other purpose than that of trying to eat his way out of a cage—the only use he seemed to make of them besides masticating soft fruits. Moreover, he had other peculiarities,e.g., singularly large naked ears, directed forward as if for offensive rather than defensive purposes; then again the second finger of the hands is unlike anything but a monster supernumerary member, itbeing slender and long, half the thickness of the other fingers, and resembling a piece of bent wire. Excepting the head and this finger, he closely resembles a Lemur. Now, as he attacked every night the woodwork of his cage, which I was gradually lining with tin, I bethought myself of tying some sticks over the woodwork, so that he might gnaw these instead. I had previously put in some large branches for him to climb upon; but the others were straight sticks to come over the woodwork of his cage, which alone he attacked. It so happened that the thick sticks I now put into his cage were boredin all directions by a large and destructive grub called here the Montorek. Just at sunset the Aye-Aye crept from under his blanket, yawned, stretched, and betook himself to his tree, where his movements were lively and graceful, though by no means as quick as those of a Squirrel. Presently he came to one of the worm-eaten branches, which he began to examine most attentively; and bending forward his ears and applying his nose close to the bark, he rapidly tapped the surface with the curious second digit, as a Woodpecker taps a tree, though with much less noise, from time to time inserting the end of the slender finger into the worm-holes as a surgeon would a probe. At length he came to a part of the branch which evidently gave out an interesting sound, for he began to tear it with his strong teeth. He rapidly stripped off the bark, cut into the wood, and exposed the nest of a grub, which he daintily picked out of its bed with the slender tapping finger, and conveyed the luscious morsel to his mouth. I watched these proceedings with intense interest, and was much struck with the marvellous adaptation of the creature to its habits, shown by his acute hearing, which enables him aptly to distinguish the different tones emitted from the wood by this gentle tapping, his evidently acute sense of smell aiding him in his search; his secure footsteps on the slender branches to which he firmly clings by his Quadrumanous members; his strong Rodent teeth enabling him to tear through the wood; and, lastly, by the curious slender finger, unlike that of any other animal, and which he used alternately as a pleximeter, a probe, and a scoop. But I was yet to learn another peculiarity. I gave him water to drink in a saucer, on which he stretched out a hand, dipped a finger into it, and drew it obliquely through his open mouth; and this he repeated so rapidly that the water seemed to flow into his mouth. After a while he lapped like a Cat; but his first mode of drinking appeared to me to be his way of reaching water in the deep clefts of trees. I am told that the Aye-Aye is an object of veneration at Madagascar, and that if any native touches one he is sure to die within the year; hence the difficulty of obtaining a specimen. I overcame this difficulty by a reward of ten pounds.”
Further information on the same subject was obtained by M. Vinson, who states that his Aye-Aye slept the greater part of the day, and moved about and made attempts to escape at night time. Having once succeeded, it climbed to the nearest tree, and moved about, leaping from branch to branch with the agility of the Ring-tailed Lemur; but its ordinary life in captivity suggested the idea of its being an indolent and rather slow-moving animal. The tail is carried in a curve, with the hollow of the bend downwards, so that it is slightly arched, and its chief office seems to be to add to the warmth of the already warm fur when the animal is in repose. In assuming the attitude of rest, the Aye-Aye places its head between its hands, and bends the tail over it by curving it forwards and letting it fall. Then it rolls itself into a ball, and covers the whole surface with the bushy hairs of this useful appendage, which is longer than the whole body and head together.
With regard to the Aye-Aye mentioned by Dr. Sandwith, Owen advised that, if it could not be sent safely to England, it had better be killed by chloroform, and sent over in spirit. Before this advice arrived the animal managed to escape from its confinement, and made for the sugar-canes in a neighbouring plantation, and there the unlucky Aye-Aye was speedily captured. He was martyred for the sake of science, and its description by Owen will last as long as literature, and its skin and bones as long as the British Museum exists. Some other observers had interested themselves about the animal in the interval, and in 1855 M. Liénard is said by Owen to have observed the habits of a young male. This one liked mango nuts, and invariably made a hole in the rind with his strong front teeth, inserted therein his slender middle digit, and then lowering his mouth to the hole, put into it the pulp which the finger had scooped out of the fruit. When one hand was tired it used the other, and often changed them. On presenting him with a piece of sugar-cane, he held it by both hands, and tearing it open with his teeth, sucked out the juice. M. Vinson had one for two months, which was brought from Madagascar to the Ile de la Réunion, and he stated that it selected the grubs it liked best by the sense of smell, and that whencafé au laitoreau maréewas offered, it drank by passing its long slender finger from the vessel to the mouth with incredible rapidity.
The Aye-Aye, according to the discovery of M. Soumagne, honorary consul of France in Madagascar, constructs true nests in trees, which resemble enormous ball-shaped “birds’-nests.” He found them in the belt of forest which is situated half-way up a great mountain close to the town of Tamatave. They are composed of the rolled-up leaves of the so-called “Traveller’s Tree,” and are lined with small twigs and dry leaves. The opening of the nest is narrow, and is placed on one side, and it is lodged in the fork of the branches of a large tree. In this the Aye-Aye resembles the lower Lemuroids, and not the generaLorisandTarsius.
The specimen of the Aye-Aye examined by Owen is three feet in length, the included tail measuring one foot eight inches and a half, and the fourth fingers of the hand and the fourth toes are the longest. The forefinger is shorter than the fifth, or little finger, and the second toe, counting the toe-thumb as the first, is shorter than the little toe.
The Aye-Aye is admirably adapted for its peculiar life, although part of its construction is very unlike that of the other Lemuroids, whose habits are much the same. Having nocturnal habits, the eyes are especially formed for the purpose of admitting all the light possible. They are large, prominent, and none of the “white” or conjunctiva is seen, only the cornea and the light brown or hazel-coloured iris behind it (commonly called the “sight”) being visible. It is a very staring, open eye, and the pupil is capable of being widely opened in the dark, and in fact it dilates generally as the light wanes, so as to admit every possible ray. In daylight, on the contrary, it contracts to a pin’s point in size, so as to shut out the light which would dazzle the eye and probably produce injury to it. There is a tapetum (seepage 214) which assists in nocturnal vision. Nature has protected the eye not only with lids, for there are traces of eyelashes on the upper one but not on the lower, under which, however, there are some bristles. There is a kind of eyebrow in the form of tufts of a dozen very slender bristle-like hairs, and to complete the arrangement for protecting the eye against direct injury, and for letting the animal know when things are near enough to injure its organ of sight, there is what is called a nictitating fold in each eye. This is a layer of the white of the eye, or conjunctiva, situated close to the inner side near the nose, and which extends when required over the “sight” as a cover and protection. In addition to the nocturnal sight, the Aye-Aye has evidently extremely delicate hearing, the ears being large, spoon-shaped, and open, and their sense is very acute. For, either by hearing or by their very fine sense of smell, it detects grubs in the wood, and soon has them out, thanks to its teeth and claws.
The feet are long, and are made for grasping and for supporting the Aye-Aye on boughs whilst it uses its hands and teeth. They are very strong, and have a very long ankle, and claws to all the toes, except to the great thumb-like toe, which is very powerful, and has a flat nail. But it is in the hands and teeth that the singularity of the animal is made manifest, which makes it so little like the Lemuroida as a group. The hand is unique, but the front of the skull and the front teeth resemble those of the gnawing animals, and hence the name Cheiromys, which means hand-rat. Something has been said already regarding the food of the animal, and as its nature has to do with the hands and teeth, it is advisable to quote the able Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, Mr. Bartlett:—
“In feeding,” writes Mr. Bartlett, “the left hand only is used, but the examination of the mode of taking her food requires careful attention, owing to the very rapid movement of the hand. The fourth finger, which is the largest and longest, is thrust forward into the food; the slender third finger is raised upwards and backwards above the rest, while the first finger (or thumb) is lowered so as to be seen below and behind the chin. In this position the hand is drawn backwards and forwards rapidly, the inner side of the fourth finger passing between the lips, the head of the animal being held sideways, thus depositing the food in the mouth at each movement. The tongue, jaws, and lips are kept in full motion all the time. Sometimes the animal will advance towards the dish and lap like a Cat, but this is unusual. The skeleton-like third finger is used with great address in cleansing her face and picking the corners of the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and other parts of the body, and during these operations the other fingers are closed.” From all that has hitherto been observed, the Aye-Aye evidently eats both insects and vegetable food, so that in captivity it will reject meat food more or less. In its natural state it will prefer the grubs of some trees to those which frequent others, and it searches along the boughs for some evidence of their presence, and, with teeth and slim fingers, opens their galleries and brings them to light.
The teeth are certainly remarkable. There are two sets, the milk teeth and the adult teeth. In the first, or milk teeth, there are two front teeth, one canine tooth, and a molar or grinder on each side of the upper jaw. In the lower jaw there is but one front tooth, no canine, and one molar on each side. A further peculiarity consists in the falling out of the molars, one incisor, and the canine in the upper jaw, to be replaced by the following adult dentition, or second set. Thisconsists of one incisor, no canine, one pre-molar, and three molars on both sides of the upper jaw; while below, the canine and pre-molar are entirely absent, the incisor and molar being like those of the upper jaw; it has thus eighteen teeth altogether. There are two front teeth in the upper and two in the lower jaw only, but they are very large, long, and narrow, being shaped like those of a Rabbit or Rat. Their tips wear away and expose a sharp cutting surface of thick enamel in front, and they are splendid cutting chisels. They gnaw and cut away wood, strip off bark, and make deep holes in the branches, and their length permits them to be placed in hollows in the wood so as to prise them open by acting as levers. It appears that they are made to grow from their sockets as they are worn down by frequent use. They are by themselves, and there is a great gap (diastema) or distance in the gums between them and the next teeth. This is quite after the fashion of the gnawing animals. The back teeth crush and champ fruit, vegetable substances, and insects with ease. There is a curious point about the chin, for there is no bony union there between the two sides of the lower jaw; on the contrary, the union is by a more or less elastic tissue, which permits of some movement up and down and from side to side during the action of the great front teeth.[144]
BONES OF THE HAND ANDFOOT OF AYE-AYE.(After Owen.)SKULL OF THE AYE-AYE(SIDE AND FRONT VIEW).(After Owen.)
BONES OF THE HAND ANDFOOT OF AYE-AYE.(After Owen.)
BONES OF THE HAND ANDFOOT OF AYE-AYE.(After Owen.)
SKULL OF THE AYE-AYE(SIDE AND FRONT VIEW).(After Owen.)
SKULL OF THE AYE-AYE(SIDE AND FRONT VIEW).(After Owen.)
The hand is most peculiar, for certain of the fingers are so thin and long that they appear as if improperly nourished. They have the usual number of joints, and the last joints have strong curved claws. They have not the same relation of length and size as in any of the other Lemuroids, for the fourth finger is the longest instead of the third, and the third finger is so much more slim than the others, that Owen remarks that it seems as if it were paralysed. The hair is carried down the arms to the fingers, and adds to their spidery look. In the wrist there are the usual nine bones, the intermedium being there in addition to the eight recognisable in the higher Apes; and the two bones of the fore-arm greatly resemble those of the Monkeys in general.
The wrist and fore-arms are very movable, and the fingers also; but the thumbs, small as they are, and clawed, have but little of the thumb-like motion, and are but very slightly opposable to the forefinger, which, moreover, is rather shorter than the “little” or fifth finger.
On the whole the Aye-Aye presents some resemblance to the Lemuroids, and less to any other animal. Its large open ears, the eyes looking straight forward, the nostrils placed at the end of the snout, the want of any groove on the upper lip, the nature of the fur, so furry below and hairy above on the skin, are interesting to those who care to compare this animal with the Lemuroids and Rodents, or gnawing animals; so are the perfect condition of the orbits, or eye cavities, in front and their opening through behind, and the arrangement of the back-bones and limbs to those who would compare it with the Monkeys.
The skeleton resembles that of these last, and there are so many points of difference from the Rodents—although the skull at first sight looks like that of a Rat—that this very exceptional creature is classified with the Lemuroida from its partial resemblance to them and the Monkeys.
Now that the Madagascar, African, and Asiatic Lemuroids have been noticed, and their prominent peculiarities described, it is easy to arrange them in the proper classification. Firstly, theposition of the whole sub-order is next to the Hapale Monkeys of South America in the order of Primates. Then, if the figures or stuffed specimens of an Aye-Aye, a Tarsius, and a Slow Loris be compared, there is no difficulty in distinguishing them, for they differ much. But if a Lepilemur and a Galago are compared, it will be noticed that although they differ enough to be placed in two genera, still the distinction is not great. So it is advisable to group them together in a family; but the three others must belong each to a separate family. The scheme of Professor Mivart, who has paid much attention to these animals, and which we adopt, is as follows:—
FAMILIES OF THESUB-ORDERLEMUROIDA AND THEIRGENERA.[145]
As groups these have more or less well-defined differences. Thus, the Lemuridæ have norete mirabile, and, except in one species, the tail is large, and all have their hind legs longer than their front ones.
The Nycticebidæ have short ears and faces, and the tail is short or absent. They have a strange defect in the fingers (of hand and foot), the ankle is short, and there is arete mirabile.
As a family the Tarsidæ have long ears, a long ankle, a long and slender tail, and there is arete mirabile. Moreover, the fourth finger is not the longest.
The Cheiromydæ are known at once by their great front teeth, and the probe-like middle finger of the hand.
All the kinds of Indris, Lepilemur, Hapalemur, Lemur, and Cheirogale inhabit Madagascar and some of the small islands close to its coast, and one kind of Lemur is found in one if not in two of the Comoro Islands, which are between the north west of Madagascar and the African coast, and nearer the island than to the continent. They have not been discovered elsewhere, and this is extremely interesting, because, with the exception of the genus Galago, they form the entire family of the Lemuridæ. The Galagos are not found in Madagascar, but in the woods and forests of the oppositecoast of Africa. Some Galagos are found as far south as Port Natal, and the thick-tailed species inhabits both the eastern and the western coasts of the continent, and the central parts also. Others have been found near the Gaboon and in Fernando Po, Senegal, and Gambia, and in the country of Sennaar and near the White Nile. The Aye-Aye is essentially a Madagascar form. The Nycticebidan family has a wide geographical range. Thus, the species of the genus Loris are found in Ceylon, in Southern India at Pondicherry, and in Hindostan; the genus Nycticebus has one species in Borneo and Sumatra, a second in Java, and a third in China. On the contrary, the remaining genera, Perodicticus and Arctocebus, are limited to the west coast of Africa, none of them being found in the intermediate regions of that continent or in Madagascar. Finally, the Tarsidæ, according to Wallace, inhabit Borneo, Celebes, and some other neighbouring islands, the species being the same in all localities. How is the widespread distribution of the animals of the sub-order to be explained? On the presumption that they all sprang from one parent stock, it is necessary to suggest the occurrence of vast geographical changes in bygone ages, such, for instance, as the former connection of Madagascar and the mainland of Africa, and their separation; the former existence and subsequent subsidence of a vast tract of land between Hindostan and Africa, north of and remote from Madagascar; and the former continuity of land where there are now the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java. It is necessary also to assume that Ceylon was united to Hindostan; and the great islands just mentioned to the continent of Asia. The land which was intermediate between Hindostan and Africa has been called Lemuria by Dr. Sclater, and its theoretical existence explains the otherwise incomprehensible presence of Giraffes and Hippopotami, now purely African genera, in the olden time in Asia. Geology rather favours these views. The first Lemuroida swarmed amongst the forests of these vast countries, and their descendants cut off from each other by geographical changes are now limited to very remote localities.
The fossil remains of Lemuroida, or of animals whose skulls resemble somewhat those of the sub-order, have been found in the Eocene of the Western territories, of the United States, and also in the south of France.
The particular muscles of the hand, arm, and shoulder which characterise the Monkeys, and which have been described in the former chapters, are found in the Lemuroids; and Murie and Mivart have already shown that in the Lemuroids the muscles agree mainly with those of Monkeys, and others bear certain resemblances to those of animals lower in the scale. Moreover, the Lemurs possess a unique band of fleshy fibres, which stretch between the shin-bone and the adjoining small bone of the leg, which would seem to serve in aiding the turning of the limb (the rotator fibulæ).
The particular muscles of the hand, arm, and shoulder which characterise the Monkeys, and which have been described in the former chapters, are found in the Lemuroids; and Murie and Mivart have already shown that in the Lemuroids the muscles agree mainly with those of Monkeys, and others bear certain resemblances to those of animals lower in the scale. Moreover, the Lemurs possess a unique band of fleshy fibres, which stretch between the shin-bone and the adjoining small bone of the leg, which would seem to serve in aiding the turning of the limb (the rotator fibulæ).
JAMESMURIE.P. MARTINDUNCAN.
JAMESMURIE.
P. MARTINDUNCAN.