88 LONDON INSECTS 



A Caterpillar in a solid tree, asking no better food or 

 bed than the wood, might not unreasonably flatter him- 

 self that he was safe from all attack ; but if he were to 

 do so he would be very much mistaken. 



In the forests of Madagascar, where wood-eating 

 larvae are found in great numbers, there is a little 

 creature the Aye-Aye, which seems to have been 

 created, or, if we prefer the phrase, ' developed,' for the 

 express purpose of keeping them down. 



It is in general appearance something between a 

 squirrel and a monkey, and has unusually perfect cut- 

 ting teeth, eyes, and ears the last ' very large, naked, 

 and directed forwards,' specially fitting it for the kind 

 of life it leads. 



To hunt for its food comfortably on the trees it 

 requires to have free use of its hands, and to enable it 

 to do this it has had a clasping thumb given to its 

 hind feet, with which it can hold on to a bough as a 

 monkey does ; and, strangest of all, to make its equip- 

 ment for the life it leads quite perfect, the second 

 finger of the hand, instead of being shaped like all the 

 others, is ' slender and long, resembling a piece of bent 

 wire.' 



' One finger on each hand,' writes Professor Owen, 

 who published in the Transactions of the Royal Society 

 in 1863 a very complete anatomical description of the 

 Aye- Aye, ' has been ordained to grow in length but not 

 in thickness with the other digits. It remains slender 

 as a probe, and is provided at the end with a small pad, 

 and hook-like claw.' 



