12 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



above and shading into snow-white below. The 

 muzzle and lower jaw are black, while the cheeks 

 and vertex are iron grey, and a circle of purest white 

 sweeps round each ear to join its fellow across the 

 forehead. The eyes are ringed with black circles, 

 recalling the tawny " spectacles" of the Peruvian 

 bear; 1 the tail, banded with alternate black and 

 white, recall that of the pretty bassaris "cat" of 

 Mexico. The palms of the hands and the soles of 

 the feet are black, as in most lemurs; the present 

 species is, however, the only one in which the tail is 

 not uniformly coloured. 



Both sexes of the ring-tailed lemur have a 

 remarkable gland situated on the inside of the 

 forearm, a little distance above the wrist. Oval in 

 shape, soft and compressible in consistence, this 

 gland is raised about one eighth of an inch above 

 the surface of the limb; it is striated in fine lines like 

 those of the palm of the hand, with which indeed it 

 is continuous by a narrow strip of hairless skin. 

 Structually, it consists of a congeries of follicles 

 resembling sweat glands, discharging by hundreds of 

 microscopic orifices; a blunt spur (perhaps hardened 

 secretion) projects in old animals across the organ 

 from its inner edge. A tuft of long hair, like the 

 whisker of a cat, is situated at a little distance above 

 the gland; it may actually, as in cats, exert some 



1. The spectacled bear ( Ursus ornatus) is a rare species inhabiting the 

 Peruvian Andes. 



