140 Proceedings of the Boy at Physical Society. 



active movements being sufficient to protect them from the 

 larger feline animals. The cryptoprocta, on the other hand, 

 the largest of the carnivora in Madagascar, living as it does 

 in the denser forest, or on the rocky mountain sides, is well 

 able to defend itself, and maintain its own amongst members 

 of the same family. 



Of the carnivora we have five genera and nine species in 

 Madagascar, not one of which is found in Africa or any other 

 place. Africa, rich in the same order, has no less than nine 

 families, many of which are widely distributed, but have no 

 representative in Madagascar. Questions such as these arise : 

 How came the extermination of the different genera of 

 lemurs in Africa, with the exception of the three genera 

 which are found at Old Calabar and Sierra Leone ? How 

 came the cryptoprocta into Madagascar ? and how is it that 

 there is such a wide difference in the carnivora ? 



Lemues. 



This family of animals, with one or two exceptions, is 

 confined to the forest, and subsists upon leaves, fruit, and the 

 smaller insects, such as spiders, found there. Lemurs are not, 

 as is often supposed, purely nocturnal. Microrhynchus laniger 

 is the only one that appears to belong to this class. They are 

 most active in the early and latter part of the day. In the 

 early morning towards sunrise they generally leave the 

 recesses of the forest for the outskirts and bask in the early 

 sunlight, generally sitting with their hind legs stretched 

 along a branch, and their fore arms so placed as to fully 

 expose their chest and under part of their body to the heat 

 of the rising sun. They are much more active amongst the 

 trees than the monkey family, and pass with great rapidity 

 from one part of the forest to another. Cheirogaleus Smithii, 

 the smallest of the tribe, builds a small nest for itself, not 

 unlike that of tlie squirrel but much less, in the lower bushes 

 of the forest. Microrhynchus laniger is mostly to be found in 

 hollow trees like the aye-aye, the others content themselves 

 on the bare branches. Lemur catia, and a pure white lemur 

 closely allied to it, are found on bare mountain rocks, where 



