Proceedinfjs. 29 



the house for some time bad the habit, wbeu a baud was 

 placed near him, of erecting his spines and making a sudden 

 jump, the effect of which was somewhat startling, and causing 

 a sharp withdrawal of the offending band. 



In the Cheiroptera, or "hand- winged" animals, — the Bats, 

 we get a third kind of flying apparatus. That of the Eeptile 

 Pterosaurs I have already described, and you will remember 

 that the flying-membrane was kept sjpread out by the long, 

 fourth digit. The bird's wing was on a totally-difi'erent plan, 

 and now in the Bats we get an organ more like an exag- 

 gerated webbed foot, a membrane spread out by the long, 

 thin digits. 



We have now come to the last division, — the Primates, — 

 which include the Lemurs, Apes, and ourselves, who are 

 much-advanced Monkeys. The Lemurs, wfiicli inhabit Mada- 

 gascar, South Africa, and Lidia, are very Monkey-like in 

 their mode of life, living in trees ; but, like the Bats, they 

 usually select the night-time for their period of activity. 

 They eat fruit, insects, and catch sleeping birds and devour 

 them. Their eyes are usually immense, and it is a comic 

 sight at the "Zoo" to see these great optics gazing at you 

 with the most astonished expression out of dark cages. 



These Lemurs and the Apes used to be classed together 

 under the term Quadrumana, which means a four-handed 

 animal; and I was recently rather astonished, on looking 

 into the usually- accurate 'Wood's Natural History,' to find 

 him asserting that — " In addition to two hands formed like 

 those of man, their feet are also formed like hands, and are 

 capable of grasping the branches, among which most Monkeys 

 pass their lives." Now we must draw a careful distinction 

 between the form of anything and the use to which it is put. 

 Otherwise we run the chance of making endless confusion 

 between structures as dissimilar as the wing of the bird and 

 the membraned hand of the Bat. The hind-foot of the 

 Monkey is not formed like a hand, but possesses the skeleton 

 of the higher mammalian foot ; and if it has great holding 

 powers, why, so has a baby's foot, and so has the foot of the 

 Australian savage when he drags a spear through the grass. 



