i8 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



drawing them through its mouth. The Aye-Aye is fearless of 

 Man, but in its wakeful hours, during the night, when irritated 

 it can be very savage and strike out with its hands. The female 

 produces but one young at a birth, and builds, in the fork of a 

 tree, a ball-like nest, two feet in diameter, with an entrance hole 

 in the side, forming it of the rolled up leaves of the Travellers'- 

 tree, and lining it with small twigs and dry leaves. (Baron.) 



THE TARSIERS. FAMILY TARSIIM). 



This family, like the preceding, has been constituted for 

 the reception of two animals which are so remarkably dis- 

 tinct from all the other species of Lemurs, as to necessi- 

 tate their being thus segregated. Between these two forms 

 however, so close a relationship exists, that they have often 

 been considered as only varieties of the same species. The 

 family, therefore, consists, as in the Chiromyidce, of a single 

 genus, the characters of which constitute also those of the 

 family. 



THE TARSIERS. GENUS TARSIUS. 

 Tarsius, Storr. Prod. Method. Mamm., p. 32 (1780). 



The Tarsiers are distinguished externally by the possession 

 of a rounded head, and a very short, pointed muzzle ; by their 

 very large, long and naked ears, and eyes so remarkably large 

 and protruding, as to form the most prominent feature of the 

 face. The hind-limb, which is much longer than the fore- 

 limb, is also very remarkable on account of the great elonga- 

 tion of the ankle-region (or tarsus) of the limb. The long and 

 slender toes terminate in round, sucker-like discs, and are 

 furnished with flat nails, except on the second and third toes, 

 where the nails are merely compressed claws. The fore- 



