THE SPECTRE TARSIER 



Spectre tarsier, and in the Manchester Museum there 

 is a female example well mounted in the life-like 

 attitude suggested by Cuming; while the Liverpool 

 collection also includes a tarsier carefully set up in 

 the same way. Dr. Guillemard in his " Cruise of 

 the Marchesa " has figured one of these lemurs as 

 creeping on all fours along a branch, with ears erect 

 and tensely curved tail. This attitude is illustrated 

 by the dark-coloured specimen in the Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington, though it has been 

 set up much too stiffly and the tail and hind legs have 

 been much distorted in mounting. The Leyden 

 Museum possesses a magnificent series of tarsiers of 

 all ages and both sexes — twenty in all of these rare 

 lemurs, including nine preserved in alcohol ; the 

 Dutch naturalists seem to have ransacked the 

 Archipelagoes for specimens. The series includes 

 specimens from Banca (Teysmann collection, 1872), 

 from the Kapouas River, S.E. Borneo (Schwaner), 

 from Java (Neeb), from the island of Sanghi between 

 Celebes and Mindanao (Hoedt) and from the island 

 of Saleyer south of Celebes (Reinwardt). 



So far museum specimens. Unfortunately, the 

 tarsier has never been brought alive to England, 

 and, although kept as a pet in its native country, is 

 tamed chiefly by the Malays. Its nocturnal habits 

 and acknowledged rarity militate greatly against any 

 European naturalist making a prolonged study of it. 

 The only observer who has been able to give a fairly 



