38.5 



LEMURID^E 



LEMURID^E. 



of which are confounded by Linnxus under the name of Lemur 

 tardiyradus, as examples of the genus Loris. 



Lord gracilia, the Slender Loris, has the visage produced and dog- 

 like ; forehead high above the nose ; ears large, thin, and rounded ; 

 body slender and weak ; limbs very long and slender ; thumb on each 

 foot more distinct, and separate from the toes ; on that and the three 

 outmost toes are flat nails ; on the interior toe of every foot a crooked 

 claw ; no tail ; the hair on the body universally short and delicately 

 soft ; the colour on the upper part tawny, beneath whitish, space round 

 the eyes dusky ; on the head is a dark-shaped spot with the end 

 pointing to the interval between the eyes. Length from the tip of 

 the nose to the anus only eight inches. 



Pennant, whose description we have given, states that notwith- 

 standing the epithet (tardigradum) given in Seba, who has figured the 

 animal (male and female) in the 35th plate of his first volume, the 

 Slender Lemur is very active, ascending trees most nimbly, and having 

 the actions of an ape. " If," says Pennant, " we credit Seba, the male 

 climl'S the trees and tastes the fruits before it presents them to its 

 mate." Seba himself observes that the epithet ' tardigradum ' is 

 misapplied. Others say that it ia a melancholy animal, silent and very 

 slow, Bleeping in the day and only awaking in the evening, and living 

 on injects, fruits, and eggs. There is a living specimen in the gardens 

 of the Zoological Society, Regent's Park, London. 



y l 



Slender Loris {Loris gracilu']. 



L. tardiyradut, the Slow-Paced Lemur. The most accurate descrip- 

 tion known to us is that given by Mr. Bennett : " The Slow-Paced 

 Lemur," he says, " is an animal of small size, scarcely equal to that 

 of a cat. The largest individual yet noticed appears to be that seen 

 by Pennant, who states its length at no less than 1 6 inches from the 

 nose to the extremity of its back. Its proportions are short and 

 thick-set ; and the apparent clumsiness of its form is much increased 

 by the manner in which it usually contracts itself into a kind of ball. 

 Its head is broad, flat, and rounded, with a slightly projecting and 

 pointed muzzle, in which the nostrils are perforated laterally. Its 

 eyes are large and perfectly orbicular, and furnished with transverse 

 pupils capable of being entirely closed during the day, and of being 

 very largely dilated at night ; their inner canthus is situated so low 

 towards the nose that the motion of the eyelids appears to take place 

 in a diagonal instead of a horizontal direction. The ears are short, 

 round, widely open, but buried in the fur ; and the tail is merely a 

 rudiment of a few lines in length. The hinder limbs are considerably 

 longer than the fore. The whole of the body, with the exception of 

 the muzzle and hands, is thickly invested with long close woolly hair 

 of a deep ashy gray with something of a brownish tinge. A deep 

 brown or chestnut band passes along the middle line of the back, and 

 is accompanied on either side by a faint grayish stripe, expanding on 

 the back of the head into a still lighter patch. The dark middle 

 stripe divides on the head into two branches, each of which is again 

 subdivided, the posterior division passing transversely across the 

 forehead and inclosing the ear, the anterior crossing the eye obliquely 

 and extending to the angle of the mouth. Between the two, above 

 the outer angle of the eye, is a large white spot. Kach of the eyes is 

 surrounded by a ring of dusky black, between which a narrow white 

 line passes from the back part of the head to the tip of the nose, 

 which, with the exception of the naked muzzle, is also white. The 

 latter, together with the naked parts of the hands, is of a livid flesh- 

 colour with a tinge of black. On the under surface the fur is of a 

 lighter gray than above." 



There are some parts of the organisation of this animal that require 

 more particular notice. 



Sir Anthony Carlisle injected the arterial system of a Lemur tanli- 



HAT. HIST. DIV. VOL. III. 



yradius, and upon tracing the course of the vessels, so as to make a dried 

 preparation, which is now in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons in London, he found that an unusual appearance of distri- 

 bution was exhibited by the large trunks of the subclavian and 

 external iliac arteries. He shows that immediately after the subcla- 

 vian has penetrated the axilla, it is divided into 23 equal-sized 

 cylinders, which surround the principal trunk of the artery, here 

 diminished in size to an inconsiderable vessel. These cylindrical 

 arteries, he observes, accompany each other, and divide with the ulnar 

 and radial branches, being distributed in their route upon the muscles, 

 each of which has one of these cylinders. The other branches, for 

 example the radial and ulnar, proceed like the arteries in general, 

 dispersing themselves upon the skin, the membranes, joints, bones, 

 &c., in an arborescent form. The iliac artery, he tells us, divides upon 

 the margin of the pelvis into upwards of 20 equal-sized cylinders, 

 surrounding the main trunk, as described in the axillary artery ; these 

 vessels are also finally distributed as in the upper extremity ; the 

 cylinders wholly upon the muscles, and the arborescent branches on 

 all the other parts. The cylindrical arteries, he adds, do not divide 

 into equal-sized cylinders, but are distributed as in the generality of 

 animals. 



Slow-Paced Lemur (Lorii (fTycticebtu) tardigradus}. 



Sir Anthony concludes by observing that it would be of some 

 importance in physiology to ascertain whether the other slow-moving 

 quadrupeds have any peculiar arrangement of the arteries of those 

 limbs. This solitary fact, he remarks, is hardly sufficient for the 

 foundation of any theoretical explanation of the slow movement of 

 these muscles : if however it should be corroborated by similar cir- 

 cumstances in other animals, he thinks that a new light may be thrown 

 upon muscular motion, by tracing a connection between the kind of 

 action produced in a muscle, and the condition of its vascularity or 

 supply of blood. 



Mr. Baird, in his interesting paper in the ' Magazine of Nat. Hist.,' 

 vol. i., 1829, remarks that all the known Mammalia close their eyelids 

 in a direction upwards and downwards, and in general the \ipper 

 _ eyelid is the one possessing the greatest degree of motion. He found 

 however that in his Slow-Paced Lemur the eyelids were brought 

 together in a diagonal direction, or outwards and inwards, which 

 gave the animal at the moment of shutting its eyes a most peculiar 

 look. It was the under or outer eyelid that had tho greatest degree 

 of motion, the upper or inner one being almost fixed ; and he concludes 

 that the orbicularis oculi must be very powerful. After the death of 

 the animal, and when Mr. Baird had left this country on a second 

 voyage to India, the eye was dissected by Dr. Knox, who found that 

 the peculiar movement of the eyelids above described did not depend 

 on any peculiar structure, but merely on the greater degree of strength 

 of the orbicularis muscle. 



Mr. Baird also observed another peculiarity in the species. " Beneath 

 the tongue proper," says he, " if I may so call it, which is somewhat 

 like that of the cat, though not rough, is another tongue, white- 

 coloured, narrow, and very sharp-pointed, which he projects along with 

 the other one when he eats or drinks, though he has the power of 

 retaining it within his mouth at pleasure." Mr. Baird however had 

 not been able to see any particular purpose to which he applied it ; 

 but he saw him use this double tongue when eating flies, of which he 

 was exceedingly fond, snapping them up most eagerly when presented 

 to him, and catching them himself when they were reposing in the 

 evening upon the walls of the room. 



Little or nothing certain appears to be known of tho habits of tho 

 Slow Lemur of Bengal in a state of nature, except as they may be 

 inferred from those which it exhibits in captivity. In this latter state 



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