O NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



full account of the "malmag" seems to have been 

 Mr. Cuming, who, in 1837, possessed one which had 

 been taken in the woods of Jagna, in Bohol, one of 

 the Philippine Islands. This specimen gave birth to 

 a young one, and the mother and young were the two 

 afterwards presented to the Zoological Society's 

 museum. Mr. Cuming found the spectre tarsier to 

 be very cleanly in its habits, never returning to half- 

 eaten food nor even drinking a second time from the 

 same water. It preferred a diet of lizards, but would 

 also take shrimps and cockroaches, especially if they 

 were alive : perhaps these were individual tastes, 

 since the tarsier which the natives of Celebes brought 

 to the yacht " Marchesa" refused to eat cockroaches 

 at all and died on the third day. The tarsier is 

 easily tamed, and then likes to be caressed, climbing 

 about its owner's person and licking his hands and 

 face. Usually silent, this animal, according to Mr. 

 Cuming, occasionally utters a single sharp cry which 

 is not repeated. 



In the wild state the spectre tarsier spends nearly 

 all the daytime asleep inside hollow trees or under 

 the roots of bamboos. At night it is active, leaping 

 from boucrh to bougrh in search of food. When 

 eating it sits upright like a squirrel ; when drinking 

 it laps slowly like a cat, which animal it also resembles 

 in frequently carrying its young in its mouth. These 

 queer youngsters do not, however, require much 

 maternal guidance, since at two days old they can 



