266 TltE FLYING LEMUfc. 



to be a member of the Monkey tribe, is yet in some respects so 

 Bat-like in form and habits, as to have been ranked with those 

 animals by the illustrious Cuvier himself. In general form and 

 appearance the Galeopithecus does not differ greatly from the 

 rest of the Lemurs ; its peculiarity consists in that its limbs 

 are all connected by a remarkable expansion of the skin between 

 the fore and hind legs and tail, extending completely round the 

 body and forming when expanded a sort of parachute, which 

 enables the animal to take immense flying leaps from branch to 

 branch in its forest haunts. The Flying Fox, Flying Cat, or 

 Flying Lemur, as the animal is indifferently called, is, like the 

 ghostly fraternity to which it belongs, strictly nocturnal in its 

 habits ; but, as if to demonstrate its Bat -like affinities, during 

 the day it hangs itself up by its hind legs and with its head 

 downwards, precisely as is done by the Pteropus, with which it is 

 popularly confounded. There appear to be two distinct species of 

 these singular creatures, natives of the Indian Archipelago, and 

 they form an unmistakable connecting link between the two 

 tribes to which they seem so closely related. 



Let us look now at the link that connects the Monkeys with 

 the Rodents. 



It is an animal about the size of a Hare, found in Madagascar, 

 which from the cry it titters has been named the Aye-Aye 

 (Cheiromys Madagascar iensis), and which until of late years has 

 been known to naturalists from a specimen brought to Europe by 

 Sonnerat towards the close of the last century. The teeth of 

 the Aye-Aye are almost exactly like those of ordinary Rodents, 

 as the rabbit, squirrel, rat, consisting only of molars and incisors, 

 or front and back teeth, with a vacant space between : the incisors 

 moreover being destitute of enamel on the inner surface, so that 

 the natural wear of these teeth always preserves them of the 

 regular chisel form characteristic of the animals to which in this 

 particular it is so nearly allied. On account of this peculiarity 

 of the dentition of the Aye-Aye, Cuvier placed the animal 

 amongst the Rodents as its nearest allies. It is now generally 

 conceded, however, that the shape of the animal's head, the 

 character of its extremities their being furnished with partially 

 opposable thumbs, and the rotatory power of the bones of the 

 ore-arm, alike show that, notwithstanding the aberrant character 

 of its dentition, its proper place, zoologically as geographically, is 



