L E M U K. 



'form of terminal slits ; and the hair of that part of 

 the body where they are placed more resembles that 

 of some of the marsupial animals of Australia, than 

 of the mammalia of Europe. The eyes are not 

 placed looking directly to the front, as they are in 

 man, neither are they completely lateral, but they 

 hold an intermediate position. Ttie mammae are two 

 in number, and situated on the breast. 



Altogether these animals thus combine the leading 

 characters of the handed animal, with those of the 

 quadruped. Their principal dwelling is in the trees, 

 and they are very dexterous in leaping from branch 

 to branch, though they do this only early in the mor- 

 ning, or late in the evening, as during the day they 

 remain in a state of repose, and very generally rolled 

 up. As they partake so much of the characters of 

 apes, or rather of monkeys, it may naturally be ex- 

 pected that they also partake of the habits of these 

 animals ; but from all the accounts it should seem 

 that they partake more of the good qualities than of 

 the bad. They have the same ardour of character 

 when excited, as the monkeys have ; but there is far 

 more repose about, them, and they have none of those 

 propensities which render monkeys in general both 

 mischievous and repulsive. They are also far more 

 docile and tractable when in a state of confinement. 

 There is one respect, however, in which both agree, 

 and that is the extreme affection of the females for 

 their young ; and it will generally be found that when- 

 ever this propensity is very strong, there is always a 

 corresponding degree of ardour in the whole character 

 of the animal. We have already mentioned that 

 Madagascar, and we might have added the adjoining 

 islands, are the only known localities where lemurs 

 are natives. Several specimens of them have been 

 brought to Europe, where they have lived, and some 

 have produced young in menageries ; but they are 

 liable to suffer severely in the cold of the climate, 

 notwithstanding the ample supply of fur with which 

 they are covered. 



The species of lemurs are not very satisfactorily 

 made out, and there are sufficient reasons why this 

 should be the case. It is but lately that their native 

 regions have begun to be looked upon with any thing 

 like a scientific eye; and as, from the mere fact of 

 their being handed animals, they were long considered 

 as belonging to the family of the apes, which gave 

 a false impression of their general character. The}' 

 are so very peculiar in their structure and habits, and 

 so confined in their geographical distribution, that 

 there is no doubt they would form a very valuable 

 index to the physical condition of their native loca- 

 lities, if they were a little better understood than 

 they are at present. Mammalia are from their struc- 

 ture much more limited, that is, much more dependent 

 on local circumstances, than birds are, which can 

 betake themselves to the air and range from place to 

 place independently of the surface of the earth ; and 

 therefore, if we find any mammalia of very peculiar 

 structure in any particular spot or distinct country, 

 they are always the very best means we can have of 

 ascertaining the physical circumstances of that coun- 

 try, arid from those circumstances a general idea of its 

 dimate and productions. To do this with proper 

 effect, it is absolutely necessary that we should per- 

 fectly understand the mechanics of the animal sys- 

 tem, more especially the articulations of the limbs. 

 Now though the lemur is a climbing animal, and 

 resides for the most part in tree?, it is not so exclu- 



sively a tree animal as the ape, the baboon, or the 

 monkey. These have not only the cross motion of 

 the anterior extremities much more powerful than the 

 motion in the mesial plane, but they have so much 

 oblique articulation in the bones of the hind thigh 

 and leg, and such a turning inwards of the foot upon 

 that leg, that they get on more lamely upon the 

 ground in proportion as they are more at home upon 

 the tree. The baboons, many of which live where 

 trees are thinly scattered, are better set on the legs 

 than the apes of the close forests ; and so is the chim- 

 pansee of Africa better set on the legs than those 

 long armed apes which inhabit the tangled forests of 

 Java, Sumatra, and the other rich isles of the east. 

 So also on the American continent, the spider mon- 

 keys, and the other races with very produced extre- 

 tremities and prehensile tails, which are found only in 

 the closest woods, are much less clever on their feet 

 than such species as have occasion to range from tree 

 to tree. The structure of the lemur is different from 

 that of any of them, and the habit agrees with the 

 structure. Though it has hands on all the four feet, 

 these hands are not turned on edge, neither are the 

 joints so constructed as that the animal can turn the 

 hand directly outwards so as to grasp a branch. It 

 mode of climbing is, more correctly speaking, a leap- 

 ing from part to part of the tree ; and thus, though it 

 can grasp the branch upon which it more immediately 

 rests, it cannot range over or beat all the parts of a 

 tree in succession, in the same manner as apes and 

 monkeys do, therefore it must be regarded as not so 

 exclusively confined in its feeding to what the tree 

 produces. We have said, that in some of its cha- 

 racters the lemur approaches more nearly to the 

 canine race than to any other family of animals. But 

 allowing this, it partakes also of some of the cha- 

 racters of the cat, not as respects its food, its method 

 of procuring that food, or its general disposition, but 

 as respects its organisation for motion. There is 

 much spring and elasticity in the backbone, and the 

 tail has that great length which is always characteristic 

 of an animal which can leap, or which otherwise takes 

 its motion steadily upon a definite line ; and as the 

 tail of the lemur is perhaps more produced in pro- 

 portion to the size of the animal than that of any 

 animal in which the tail is not prehensile, we may 

 naturally suppose that it proportionally assists the 

 animal in its function of leaping. Perhaps the 

 nearest approximation which we have to the lemur 

 in this respect, is in the AILURCS of northern India - r 

 but the ailurus, as may be seen by referring to that 

 article, takes the remainder of its character as much 

 from the cat family as the lemur does from the mon- 

 key. Indeed, before we could satisfactorily point out 

 the proper place of these very peculiar animals in a 

 natural system in which animals should be arranged 

 strictly according to their organisation and geogra- 

 phical distribution taken jointly, we would require to 

 bring under review all those animals to which a 

 resemblance may be traced in the lemur ; and this 

 would be far too extended as well as too elaborate a 

 matter for being treated of in a popular work adapted 

 for common readers only. We shall therefore shortly 

 notice the species as they are described by naturalists, 

 without pledging ourselves that we enumerate the 

 whole, that the whole are known, or that some which 

 are described as separate species may not be mere 

 varieties of age, or resulting from accidental cir- 

 cumstances 



