MAMMALIA 



373 



scrambles over the rocks, its leathery palms being furrowed with sucker- 

 like grooves, enabling it to go where man cannot. The ruffed or black and 

 white lemur is perhaps the most beautiful. It is the size of a large house cat, 

 has a long tail, and is clothed in long, soft, silky, fine fur. The mouse lemurs, 

 dwarf lemurs, and fat-tailed lemurs estivate during the hot and dry seasons, 

 curling up in their nests, just as northern animals do in hibernation. 

 "They go in fat, subsist by absorption of this stored tissue, and come out 

 thin and weak" at the approach of the rainy season. Lemurs are all per- 

 fectly harmless, but their weird actions, big eyes, and loud cries have led to 

 their being reverenced and feared by the superstitious natives. 



The female aye-aye constructs a 

 globular nest in a tree for the rearing 

 of her single offspring. 



Sub-order Anthropoidea differs 

 from the lemurs in having the 

 mammary glands always tho- 

 racic, the orbital and temporal 

 fossae separated by bone. The 

 cerebral hemispheres are highly 

 developed, almost or quite con- 

 cealing the cerebellum. There 

 are over two hundred tropical 

 and subtropical species. 



American monkeys (Platyrrhi'na) 

 differ from the Old World forms in 

 having the nostrils directed downward 

 and separated by a broad septum. 

 As a rule, they are also smaller and 

 have but thirty-two teeth. The tails 

 are usually long and prehensile. No 

 American form has cheek pouches. 

 Most of them are arboreal. All 

 American monkeys are small, varying 

 in size from that of young kittens or 

 chipmunks to 20 inches long. They 

 are hairy or woolly. One baby mon- 

 key is born to each female each year. 



The marmosets are lowest in the scale of development, indeed, they 

 sometimes look very little like monkeys. They range from southern 

 Mexico to southern Brazil. They are small, delicate creatures, with hair- 

 less faces, large, bright eyes, and long tails. In some species the long silky 

 hair stands up on the head like a white ruff. The digits are, for the most 

 part, clawed, the great toe only bearing a flat nail. They are arboreal, but 

 the tails are not prehensile. 



The second family of American monkeys (Ceb'idce) is distinguished from 

 the marmosets by thirty-six teeth, and by the generally long and prehensile 

 tail, which is naked on the under side of the end. 



Fig. 297. Otolicnus galago of Af- 

 rica. (From Vogt and Specht.) 



