FAMILY OF LEMURS. 



rendering their forms indistinct among the the dark foliage of the trees, and thus 

 serving as a friendly veil, rouses them from their repose, and invites them to 

 sweep along through the woods in quest of food. They are, in fact, essentially 

 nocturnal or crepuscular. They sleep perched on branches, with the head buried 

 between the arms, in the fur of the chest ; and with the tail wound round the 

 body, thus appearing like balls of fur. 



Active and at home among the trees, they are far less so on the ground, to 

 which they rarely resort. When there, they move along obliquely, in a sort of 

 canter or succession of bounds, applying the whole of the hands and feet, as do 

 plantigrade animals, to the level surface over which they traverse, but from which 

 they are ever anxious to escape. 



Having thus sketched the general characters and habits of the family, we shall 

 next proceed to a consideration of the several genera into which it is subdivided. 



Genus Lemur. — Gen. Char. : — Headlong and triangular, muzzle pointed ; eyes 

 moderate and oblique; ears short and hairy; tail very long and bushy. The 

 hinder limbs longer than the anterior, the tibia and the femur being of equal 

 length. — 



Incisors — , canines ■ 1 ' 1 - , molars on each side -4-. The incisors above 



b ' 1.1' 5 



are small ; below long, compressed, pointed, and in close array, projecting almost 

 horizontally ; the outermost on each side is the largest ; they form altogether a sort 

 of spoon or scooping instrument. The canines above are large, sharp, compressed, 

 with a posterior cutting edge ; those of the lower jaw are smaller, and fit into a 

 space between the upper canine and first false molar. Of the molars on each 

 side above, the two first are false ; simple and acutely conical ; the true molars 

 have each three pointed tubercles on their crown. The last molar is small. 

 False molars below, two ; true molars three, the last being small. Mammae, 

 two, pectoral. In the annexed sketch we give profiles of a hand and foot, and of 

 the head, of one of this genus, in order to render the characters intelligible. 



The true Lemurs are 

 all natives of Madagascar, 

 where they supply the 

 place of the Simice, so 

 abundant on the adjacent 

 shores of the African con- 

 tinent. This circumstance, 

 connected with others in 

 reference to the indigen- 

 ous mammalia of Mada- 

 gascar, stamps the island 

 with peculiar interest in 

 the consideration of the 



