1 8 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



exhibited under the new management of the London 

 Zoological Gardens is the lemur apartment in the 

 anteater house a building strangely enough almost 

 entirely devoted to prosimians. Here are the ring- 

 tailed lemur, the grey lemur, the black lemur, the 

 black-headed lemur, the broad-nosed lemur ; the 

 ruffed lemur in black and white, a mammalian 

 magpie, largest of all the prosimian race ; the slow 

 loris from India, and the Garnett galago from 

 Zanzibar. Strangely fond of sunshine, like their 

 forerunner of Cuvier's day, the ring-tails often sit 

 bolt upright, like kangaroos or suricates, stretching 

 out their hands to the warmth. Sometimes they 

 grasp the wires with their powerful hind feet, and 

 loll back at ease ; or crouch on the cage floor with 

 paws extended, head raised and tail stretched out 

 behind them. At dusk a continual chorus of grunts 

 and growls rises from the furry crowd behind the 

 wires. The galago flits along its perch like a shadow ; 

 the slow loris climbs clumsily, its pink nose and 

 hands almost human, and its rotund body resembling 

 that of a tiny bear. The black lemurs sit one behind 

 another on a branch, as if about to take part in a tug 

 of war ; the ringtail lemurs mew like cats and come 

 to the wires to be caressed. One could, indeed, 

 listening to the chorus in the fast-gathering twilight, 

 picture the thickets of Madagascar alive with dusky 

 forms twittering in the darkness, the harmless ghosts 

 of the primaeval forest. 



