200 ON THE LEMXJRIDJF.. 



than in the Galagos ; these bullae are so developed as to touch each other ; 

 and thus the sense of hearing is, by another mode, rendered as acute in the 

 former as in the latter. 



We now arrive at the ultimate link in the chain of the Lemuriace, and are 

 presented with a genus so peculiar in all respects, that Cuvier, in his Regne 

 Animal, separates it from the Lemurs, and places it at the end of the Vesperti- 

 lionidce, to which family he evidently regards it as more immediately related 

 than to the Lemurs. The genus in question is Galeopitkecus, Pall., of which 

 the Flying Lemur is the example. The " Galeopitheques" says this great and 

 philosophic naturalist, " differ generally from the Bats, inasmuch as the fingers 

 of the forehands, all furnished with trenchant claws, are not more elongated than 

 those of the feet, so that the membrane which occupies their interspaces, and 

 extends even along the sides of the tail, can scarcely fill any other office than that 

 of a parachute." This want of the extreme development of the phalanges of the 

 fore-hands, so remarkable in the Bats, whether insectivorous or fruit-eaters, 

 would lead us to hesitate in placing this curious animal with the Vespertilion- 

 idce, independently of some other points of structure in which characteristic 

 differences are manifest. LinnjEUs — who in his discrimination of the great out- 

 line of groups has never been surpassed, may we not say equalled, — placed this 

 animal with the Lemurs, under the title of Lemur volans, and, notwithstanding 

 the extensive development of lateral and caudal membranes, there is that in the 

 general aspect of the animal to incline us to his views. The possession of exten- 

 sive membranes, serving not as wings, but as a parachute, ought not to startle 

 us. We meet with them in the Squirrels, — they occur in the Phalangers of New 

 Holland ; and in deciding on the relationship of species thus distinguished, we 

 must set these extraneous parts aside, and look at more important points of struc- 

 ture. 



The head in its general aspect is that of a Lemur ; the muzzle is long ; the 

 nostrils are naked, lateral and sinuous ; the eyes are moderate ; the ears short, 

 and pointed. The anterior limbs are long; the hands are divided into five 

 fingers ; the first or thumb, separated from the rest, with which it cannot be 

 said to antagonize, is short, — the remaining four are nearly equal, the index 

 being rather shorter than the others. They are all armed, not with flat nails, 

 but with large, deep, hooked, sharp-edged and retractile claws, and are connected 

 by membranes, advancing even beyond the base of the claws. The hinder limbs 

 slightly exceed the fore-limbs in length, and the feet are similar in character to 

 the hands. If in the possession of large hooked claws on the fore-hands, we find 

 a departure from the Lemurine type, we find, also, that in the abbreviation of the 

 fingers, and the presence of large claws, not only on the thumb, but on all, 

 there is an equal departure from the cheiropterous type of structure. 



