The South American monkeys, with their squirrel-like forms and fur, are closely related to a beautiful and interesting group of creatures, called the LEMURS, with their cousins the Lorises, Maholis, and Pottos. Their resemblance to monkeys is mainly in their hands and feet. These are real and very highly developed hands, with proper thumbs. The second toe on the hind foot nearly always terminates in a long, sharp claw. "Elia," the Indian naturalist, who kept them as pets noticed that they used this to scratch themselves with. Some of them have the fingertips expanded into a sensitive disk, full of extra nerves. Lemur means 'ghost." "Unlike the lively squirrels and monkeys, they do not leave their hiding-places till the tropical darkness has fallen on the forest, when they seek their food, not by descending to the ground, but by ascending to the upper surface of the trees, and again, at the first approach of dawn, seek refuge from the light in the recesses of some dark and hollow trunk. THE RING-TAILED LEMUR is as lively by day as night; but most of the race are so entirely creatures of darkness that the light seems to stupefy them. When wakened, they turn over like sleeping children, with the same inarticulate cries and deep, uneasy sighs. But at night most are astonishingly active; they fly from tree to tree, but invisible; so that the natives of Madagascar doubt whether they are not true lemurs, the unquiet ghosts of their departed dead.
Though the lemurs are here treated apart from the other animals of Madagascar, it will be obvious that they are a curious and abnormal tribe. This is true of most of the animals of that great island, which has a fauna differing both from that of the adjacent coast of Africa and from that of India or Australia. In the FOSSA, a large representative of the Civets, it possesses a species absolutely unlike any other. The Aye-aye is also an abnormal creature. Nor must it be forgotten that Madagascar was until recently the home of some of the gigantic ground-living birds. But, after all, none of it inhabitants are more remarkable than its hosts of lemurs, some of which are to be met with in almost every coppice in the island. there are also many extinct kinds.
Exquisite fur, soft and beautifully tinted, eyes of extraordinary size and color (for the pupil shuts up to a mere black line by day, and the rest of the eye shows like a polished stone of rich brown or yellow or marble gray), are the marks of most of the lemurs. But there are other lemur-like creatures, or "lemuroids", which though endowed with the same lovely fur, like softest moss, have no tails. the strangest of all are two creatures called the SLENDER LORIS and the SLOW LORIS. the slender loris, which has the ordinary furry coat of the lemurs, and no tail, moves on to the branches exactly as does a chameleon . each hand or foot is slowly raised, brought forward, and set down again. The fingers then as slowly close on the branch till its grasp is secure. It is like a slow-working mechanical toy. probably this is a habit, now instinctive, gained by ages of cautiously approaching insects. But the result is to give the impression that the creature is almost automaton.
Madagascar is the main home of the lemurs, though some of the elated animals are also found in Africa and in the East Indies. But the dense forests of the great island are full of these curious nocturnal beasts, of which there are so many varieties presenting very slight differences of form and habit, that naturalists have some difficulty in giving even a complete lists of their species. Add to this that nearly all of them are intensely and entirely nocturnal, and the scarcity of data as to their habits is easily accounted for. When seen by us, their faces all lack expression- that is to say, the eyes, which mainly give expression, seem entirely vacant and meaningless. but this is due to their special adaptation to seeing in the dark tropical night. By day the pupil of the eye almost disappears. If only we could also see in the dark, the eyes of the lemur might have as much expression as those of a faithful dog. The change which night makes in their general demeanour is simply miraculous. By day many of them are like hibernating animals, almost incapable of movement. When once the curtain of night has fallen, they are as active as squirrels, and as full of play as a family of kittens. The RING-TAILED LEMUR is often kept as a pet, both in Madagascar and in the Mauritius. It is one of the very few which are diurnal in their habits. When in a hurry it jumps along, standing on its hind feet, like a little kangaroo, but holding its tail upright behind its back. It will follow people upstairs in this way, jumping from step to step, with its front paws outstretched, as if it were addressing an audience. The French call these day lemurs MAKIS. The ring-tailed lemur lives largely among rocks and precipices. Most of these creatures live upon fruit, the shoots and leaves of trees, and other vegetable food. But, like the squirrel, they have no objection to eggs and nestlings, and also kill and eat any small birds or insects. Some of the smaller kinds are almost entirely insect-feeders. The largest kind of lemur belongs to the group knowns as the INDRIS. THE BLACK-AND-WHITE INDRI measures about two feet in length. It has only a rudimentary tail, large ears, and a sharp-pointed nose. The amount of white colouring varies much in different individuals. This variation in coloring- a very rare feature among wild mammalia, though one of the first changes shown when animals are domesticated- is also found in the next three species, called SIFAKA, the WOOLLY INDRI, and the BLACK INDRI all belong to this group. The SIFAKAS, as some of these and the allied forms are called, are venerated by the Malagasys, who never kill one intentionally. Mr. Foster observes that "they live in companies of six or eight, and are very gentle and inoffensive animals , wearing a very melancholy expression, and being as a rule morose, in active, and more silent than other lemurs. They very rarely live long in captivity. In their native state they are most alert in the morning and evening, as during the day they conceal themselves under the foliage of trees. When asleep or in repose, the head is dropped on the chest and buried between the arms, the tail rolled up on itself and disposed between the hind legs. The sifakas live exclusively on vegetable substances, fruits, leaves, and flowers, their diet not being varied, as in the other lemurs, by small birds, eggs, or insects. Their life is almost entirely arboreal, for which the muscles of their hands and feet, as well as the parachute-like folds between their arms and bodies, and their peculiar hooked fingers, are well fitted. The young one is carried by the mother on its back, its hands grasping her armpits tightly".
This is not the universal way of carrying the young among lemurs. The CROWNED LEMUR, a beautiful gray-and-white species, often breeds at the Zoo. The female carries its young one partly on its side. The infant clings tightly with arms and tail round the very slender waist of the lemur, and pushes out its sharp little face just above the thigh of the mother. The WOOLLY INDRI has more woolly fur than the others of its tribe, a shorter nose, and a longer tail.
THE TRUE LEMURS
Of these there are several species, all confined to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. One of the best known is the RING-TAIL LEMUR, mentioned above. It is called LEMUR CATTA, the Cat Lemur, from being so often kept in domestication. The WEASEL LEMUR, THE GRAY LEMUR, THE MOUSE LEMUR, THE GENTLE LEMUR, THE SPORTIVE LEMUR, the CROWNED LEMUR, and COQUEREL'S LEMUR, all represent various small, pretty, and interesting varieties of the group. The BLACK-AND-WHITE LEMUR, one of the larger kinds, is capable of domestication. A specimen kept in London house, where the present writer saw it, was always called "Pussy" by the children. The other small kinds are very like squirrels, mice, weasels, and other creatures, with which they have no connection. It seems as though the curiously limited and primitive fauna of Madagascar tried to make up for its want of variety by mimicking the forms of other animals, and something of the same kind is seen in Australia, where the marsupials take place of all kinds of ordinary mammals. There are marsupial rats, marsupial wolves, marsupial squirrels, and even marsupial moles. The small squirrel and rat-like lemurs are called CHIROGALES. COQUEREL'S LEMUR is really a chirogale. It is a quaint and by no means amiable little animal, sleeping obstinately all day, and always ready to growl and bite if disturbed. Its color is brownish gray and cream-color. A pair of these, rolled up tightly into balls in a box of hay, will absolutely refuse to move, even when handled. They only feed by night.
THE GALAGOS
An allied group, confined to tropical Africa, is that of the GALAGOS. They are most beautiful little creatures, whose nearest relatives are the Malagasy lemurs. Generally speaking, they have even more exquisite fur than the lemurs. It is almost as soft as floss silk, and so close that the hand sinks into a bed of moss. The color of the fur is rich and pleasing, generally some shade of brown. The head is small, the nose pointed, and the ears thin, hairless, and capable of being folded up, like the wings of a beetle. But the most beautiful feature of the galagos is their eyes. These are of immense size, compared with the head. The eye is of the richest and most beautiful brown, like a cairngorm stone, but not glassy or clear. Though quite translucent, the eye is marked with minute dividing-lines, like the grain in an agate- a truly exquisite object. When handled or taken in the arms, the little galago clasps the fingers or sleeve tightly, as if it thought it was holding a tree, and shows no disposition to escape. A family of three or four young ones, no larger than mice, with their large-eyed mother attending to them, with their large-eyed mother attending to them, forms an exquisitely dainty little group. The galagos vary from the size of a squirrel to that of a small cat. The kind most often seen in England is the MAHOLI GALAGO from east Africa. Another species comes from Senegal, and others from Calabar and the forests of the Gold Coast. GARNETT'S GALAGO, another species, is shown above. They may be regarded as nocturnal tropical lemuroids, analogous to the chirogales of Madagascar. It has been suggested, with great probability, that the intensely drowsy sleep of many of the lemuroid animals corresponds to the hibernation of many northern mammals. tropical animals often become torpid to avoid the famine caused by the hot season, just as creatures in cold countries hibernate to avoid the hunger which would otherwise come with winter.
THE SLOW LEMURS OR LORISES, AND TARSIERS
Another group of lemuroids is distinguished from the foregoing by having the second finger of the fore paws either very short or rudimentary. The thumb and great toe are also set very widely apart from the other fingers and toes. A far more striking distinction to the non-scientific eye is their astonishingly deliberate and slow movements. They have no tails, enormous eyes, and very long, slender legs.
The SLOW LORIS is found in Eastern India and the Malay countries, where it is fairly common in the forests. The Bengali natives call it sharmindi billi ("bashful cat"), from its slow, solemn, hesitating movements when in pursuit of insects. Of a slow loris kept by him, Sir Wiliam Jones, in the "Asiatic Researches," wrote: "At all times he seemed pleases at being stroked on the head and throat, and he frequently allowed me to touch his extremely sharp teeth. But his temper was always quick, and when he was unseasonably disturbed he expressed a little resentment, by an obscure murmur, like that of a squirrel... When a grasshopper or any insect alighted within his reach, his eyes, as he fixed them on his prey, glowed with uncommon fire; and having drawn himself back to spring on his prey with greater force, he seized it with both his fore paws, and held it till he had devoured it. He never could have enough grasshoppers, and spent the whole night in prowling for them".
The SLENDER LORIS, and equally curious creature, is only found in Southern India and Ceylon. Its food consists entirely of insects, which it captures by gradual, almost paralyzed approach. Its has been described as a "furry-coated chameleon". A group of slow lemurs, living in Western Africa, are known as POTTOS. They are odd little quadrupeds, in which the "forefinger" never grows to be more than a stump. The tail is also either sharp or rudimentary. They are slow as the lorises in their movements.
In the Malay islands a distant relative, even more curiously formed, is found in the TARSIER. It has huge eyes, pointed ears, and beautiful fur of the galagos, but the tail is long, thin and tufted. The fingers are flattened out into disks, like a tree-frog's. these creatures hop from bough to bough in a frog-like manner in search of insects. they are not so large as a good-sized rat. our photograph does not give an adequate idea of the size of the eyes.
THE AYE-AYE
Last, and most remarkable of all these weird lemuroids, is the AYE_AYE. It is placed in a group by itself, and has teeth like those of the Rodents, a large bushy tail, and most extraordinarily long, slender fingers, which it probably uses for picking caterpillars and grubs out of rotten wood. It is nearly as large as an Arctic fox, but its habits are those of a lemur. In Madagascar it haunts the bamboo forests, feeding on the juice of sugar-cane, grubs, and insects. The fingers of its hands are of different sizes and lengths, though all are abnormally long and slender. The second finger seems to have been "wasted", but it is said to be of the utmost value to its owner in extracting grubs and insects from the burrows in which they dwell, or the crannies in which have taken refuge. very seldom is this animal seen alive in captivity. Al though commonly called Aye-Aye in this country, it is doubtful if this is really its native name. The aye-aye was long a puzzle to naturalists, but it is now classed as a lemuroid.
The living races of animals have thus far been reviewed along the completed list of the first great order- the Primates. Even in that circumscribed group how great is the tendency to depart from the main types, and how wonderful the adaption to meet the various needs of the creatures' environment! The skeletons, the frames on which these various beings are built up, remain the same in character; but the differences of proportion in the limbs, of the muscles with which they are equipped, and of the weight of the bodies to be moved are astonishing. Compare, for instance, the head of the male. Gorilla, with its great ridges of bones, to which are attached the muscles which enable it to devour hard tropical fruits and bite off young saplings and bamboos, with the rounded and delicate head of the Insect-eating Monkeys of South Africa; or set side by side the hand of the Chimpanzee with that of the Aye-aye, with its delicate, slender fingers, like those of a skeleton hand. What could be more diverse than the movements of these creatures, whose structure is nevertheless so much alike? Some of the lemuroids are as active as squirrels, flying lightly from branch to branch; in others, as the Slow Lorises, the power of rapid movement has disappeared, and been replaced by a creeping gait which cannot be accelerated. Already, in a single order, we see the rich diversity of nature, and its steady tendency to make all existing things serviceable by adapting other parts of creation to their use of enjoyment.
