& baa od 
120 MAMMALIA. 
the preceding; tail three-fourths as long as the body. It lives in 
- -.troops in the prairies of the temperate regions of North America. 
There is one found in the Indian Archipelago, that is nearly the 
size of a cat; the male is of a fine lively maronne above, and red 
...underneath; the female brown above, and whitish underneath. It 
is-the 
“Sc. petaurista, L.; Buff. Supp. IIT. xxi, and VII. lxvii. (The 
Tagttan). The same Archipelago produces another small one, the 
Sc. sagitta, L. A deep brown above; white beneath; distin- 
guished from other species, the small ones especially, by its mem- 
brane, which, as in the Taguan, forms an extremely acute projecting 
angle beliind the tarsus. 
M. Geoffroy has very properly separated from this genus the 
Cuerromys, Cuv.* 
Or the Aye-Ayes, whose inferior incisors, much more compressed, and, 
in an especial manner, more extended from front to back, resemble plough- 
shares. ach foot has five toes, of which four of the anterior are exces- 
sively elongated, the medius being more slender than the others; in the 
hind feet the thumb is opposable to the other toes; so that they are in 
this respect among the Rodentia, what the Opossums are among the Car- 
naria. ‘The structure of their head is otherwise very different from that 
of the other Rodentia, and is related to the Quodrumana in more points 
than one. 
There is only one species of the Aye-Aye known. It was disco- 
vered at Madagascar by Sonnerat. It is the Cheir. Madagascarien- 
sis; Sc. Madagascar., Gm.; Buff. Supp. VII. Ixviii. (The Aye- 
Aye). Size of a hare, of a brown colour, mixed with yellow; tail 
long and thick, with stout black bristles; ears large and naked. It 
is a nocturnal animal, to which motion seems painful; it burrows 
under ground, and uses its slender toe to convey food to its mouth. 
Linnzas and Pallas united in one single group, under the name of 
Mus. Lin. 
All the Rodentia furnished with clavicles, which they could not distin- 
guish by some very sensible external character, such as the tail of the 
squirrel or that of the beaver, from which resulted the utter impossibility 
of assigning to them any common character; the greater number had 
merely pointed lower incisors, but even this was subject to exceptions. 
Gmelin has already separated from them the marmots, dormice, and the 
jerboas; but we carry their subdivision much further, from considerations 
founded on the form of their grinders. 
Arcromys,} Gm. 
The Marmots, it is true, have the inferior incisors pointed like those of 
the greater number of animals comprehended in the great genus Mus; 
* Cheiromys, a vat with hands, }+ Arctomys, Bear Rat. 
