210 Descriptive Notice of' 



skin diagonally from the sides ; a peculiarity rather remark- 

 able, and which has not been taken notice of by any author I 

 have seen. This, too, he does most especially when eating any 

 hard substance, as a piece of lump sugar, &c. All the ani- 

 mals we know belonging to the class Mammalia, like man, 

 close their eyelids in a direction, upwards and downwards, 

 and, in general, the upper eyelid is the one possessing the 

 greatest degree of motion. In this animal, however, the eye- 

 lids are brought together in a diagonal direction, or outwards 

 and inwards, which gives him, at the moment of shutting his 

 eyes, a most peculiar look ; and it is the under or outer eyelid 

 that has the greatest degree of motion, the upper or inner one 

 being almost fixed. At first sight it might appear that, in 

 order to possess this lateral motion, the muscular apparatus of 

 the internal eye must deviate from that of the animals of the 

 class Mammalia; and that a separate muscle must be in exist- 

 ence, attached to the outer or lower . eyelid. Upon looking 

 more attentively, however, we discern the inner canthus of the 

 eye situate very low down in the face, and this circumstance, 

 perhaps, may account for the manner in which he shuts his 

 eyes. The orbicularis oculi muscle must be very powerful ; 

 and from this position of the inner canthus, and the insertions 

 the muscle being, in consequence of this, also low down in the 

 face, it will act chiefly on the outer or lower eyelid ; and draw- 

 ing it towards the inner one, which is only partially movable, 

 thus close the eye in a diagonal direction. It is very much to 

 be lamented, however, that Sir A. Carlisle's attention had not 

 been directed to this peculiar appearance, before he disposed 

 the specimen he had possession of; as the existence of a sepa- 

 rate muscle attached to the lower eyelid, would constitute a 

 remarkable deviation from the anatomy of the eyelids of the 

 rest of the Mammalia. 



Reptiles, such as the frog, &c., have the same lateral motion 

 of the eyelids as in the Lemur ; and these animals possess a 

 separate muscle for this movement. * His pupil is very small, 

 being very much contracted during the day. His fore legs 

 terminate in hands like those of a monkey, with a soft, smooth 

 palm, a thumb and four fingers, each provided with a small 



* The specimen died in the beginning of this year (1828), after Mr. Baird, 

 the author of the paper, had left the country on a second voyage to India. 

 The eye was dissected by an eminent comparative anatomist, Dr. Knox of 

 Edinburgh, who found that the peculiar movement of the eyelids above 

 described did not depend on any peculiar structure, but merely on the 

 greater degree of strength of the orbicularis muscle. The lungs of the 

 animal were found to be in a diseased state ; and some parts of the skeleton 

 were affected with eruptive appearances, similar to those which occur in apes 

 brought from warm to cold countries. — P.N. 



