98 LEMURS. 



good evidence to show was formerly connected by land 

 with Madagascar. We do not, indeed, yet know how the 

 ancient lemurs of Europe got into Africa, but when once 

 there it is certain that they were ultimately cut off from 

 Europe by a sea which stretched from the Atlantic to the 

 Bay of Bengal in upper Eocene times. For some time 

 afterwards, during which Africa and Madagascar still had 

 a free communication, the large mammals characteristic 

 of Miocene Europe were unknown in the lands to the south 

 of this great sea, where lemurs and other lowly animals 

 flourished in security. During some portion of this period 

 Madagascar must have become separated from Africa, 

 while an upheaval of land once more brought Africa into 

 connection with Europe and Asia, and thus allowed it to 

 be overrun by the great hoofed and carnivorous mammals 

 which had hitherto existed only to the north of the 

 dividing sea. This incursion of large quadrupeds at once 

 put a final stop to the supremacy of the lemurs in Africa, 

 where only a few species have since managed to survive 

 by the aid of their nocturnal habits. In Madagascar, 

 however, where there are still no large quadrupeds, and 

 where the only carnivores are certain civet-like animals, 

 the lemurs have continued to flourish in full exuberance, 

 and the existing state of that island thus offers to our 

 view a picture of what must have been the condition of 

 Africa previous to the advent of its present fauna from 

 the north. The few lemurs now inhabiting the Indian and 

 Malayan region are, doubtless, also survivors from the 

 original central home of the group, which have found 

 safety in the dense forests of the regions they inhabit. 



A good deal more might be said on the subject of the 

 past and present distribution of lemurs, but by this time 

 the reader will probably be impatient to know something 

 of the characteristics of the animals thus designated by 

 naturalists. Of course comparatively little can be said on 

 this subject in an essay of the present length, and it 

 unfortunately happens that the lemurs, as a whole, do not 

 present any very strongly marked single external feature 

 by which they can be distinguished at a glance from all 

 other mammals. It is, however, only with some of the 



