HABITS OF THE AYE- AYE. 257 



amongst the Lemurs, and that it is therefore really and truly a 

 member of the Monkey tribe. 



An interesting account of the habits of this hitherto little- 

 known animal has recently been published in the " Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society," from the pen of Mr. H. Sand with. 

 It appears that the food of the Aye-Aye consists of fruits and 

 insects, particularly of wood-eating larva?, which it exhibits great 

 ingenuity in discovering and withdrawing from their holes. Mr. 

 Sandwith was led to infer that the animal fed on this latter 

 description of food from observing the curious way in which it 

 climbed about the chairs and tables, every now and then pausing 

 to tap the wood with its second ringer, and then listening atten- 

 tively, and carefully observing the spot. On some worm-eaten 

 branches of a tree being put into its cage, the animal climbed 

 upon one of them and began to examine it very carefully ; it then 

 inclined its large round ears forward, and applying its nose to the 

 bark, it struck at the wood repeatedly with its long wire-like 

 second finger, just as the woodpecker strikes the tree, though 

 with much less noise. Occasionally it would introduce the tip 

 of its finger into the worm-holes as a surgeon would his probe. 

 At length, coming to a part of the branch where some sound was 

 evidently heard, it began tearing off the bark with its strong 

 teeth, and then cutting away the wood, it soon exposed the hole 

 of a worm, which it delicately extracted with its wire like-finger 

 and conveyed to its mouth. 



The Aye-Aye is a timid and inoffensive animal, concealing 

 itself by day, and coming abroad only by night. It is covered, 

 like most of the Lemurs, with a thick coating of fur ; and it is 

 furnished with a long bushy tail, like the Squirrel, though, 

 unlike that animal, it seems never to carry its tail erect, but 

 always to keep it trailing behind. 



The true Lemurs need not detain us long. They differ from 

 the Monkeys properly so called in the form and contour of the 

 head and body, which is exceedingly fox-like ; but their true 

 position is shown by their possession of opposable thumbs on all 

 four extremities, in this particular being, as we shall find, more 

 Monkey -like than some of the true Monkeys. 



For example, here next in order above the Lemurs stand the 

 American Monkeys, in which the thumb of the fore-hand is never 

 opposable to the fingers. Our comprehensive term Quadrumana 



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