36 ‘PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE AYE-AYE. 
the figure of the skull of the Wombat, with a like rodent pattern of teeth, in the same 
plate with that of the Aye-aye, where they are associated together as ** Mammifeéres 
anomaux.” In my ‘Odontography,’ I cite other instances of glirine dentition in 
mammals of non-rodent orders; where, treating of the teeth of Chiromys, in chap. ix., 
Quadrumana, I remark,—‘‘ In this genus of Lemurine animals, as in Desmodus amongst 
the Bats, and Sorex amongst the Insectivores, the dentition is modified in analogical 
conformity with the rodent type” (4to, 1842, p. 435). In my ‘‘ Classification of the 
Mammalia” (‘ Proceedings of the Linnean Society,’ April 1857), I state,—‘ The flying 
Lemurs (Galeopitheci), the rodent Lemurs (Chiromys), the slow Lemurs (Loris, Otolicnus), 
forbid any generalization as to teeth or nails in the Quadrumana” (p. 35). 
One need merely allude to the idea of the affinities of the Aye-aye to the Opos- 
sums, emitted by Geoffroy St.-Hilaire in the early notice in which he proposed first 
the generic name of Daubentonia’: the idea, however, was adopted by Lacépéde in the 
constitution of his Order ‘‘ Pédimanes ”’ in the ‘ Classification des Mammiféres,’ pub- 
lished in 1798. 
Illiger, in rectifying the heterogeneous character of Lacépéde’s ‘‘ Pédimanes,” places 
the Aye-aye in his Family ‘‘ Leptodactyli,” where it is associated with the Tarsiers 
and Galagos’. 
MM. Fischer de Waldheim®, Oken*, and Waterhouse’ adopted this view, which is also 
supported argumentatively by M. F. Cuvier in the ‘Supplément ’ of the third volume 
of the ‘ Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles,’ 1816. 
Notwithstanding, however, these testimonies, and the remarks, depreciating Baron 
Cuvier’s share in the elucidation of the nature of the Aye-aye, published by De Blainville, 
unbiassed zoologists of note and experience have testified their sense of the need of further 
knowledge of the organization of the Chiromys by the place assigned to it in their justly 
esteemed works. Prof. Milne-Edwards, for example, in his useful ‘ Elémens de Zoologie,’ 
retains the Chiromys in the Ordre “‘ Rongeurs,” and the ‘‘ Tribu des Sciuriens,” with the 
admission that ‘‘it belongs almost as much to the Quadrumana as to the Rodentia®.”  Pro- 
fessor Van der Hoeven, also, whose careful researches into the anatomy of certain Lemu- 
ride justly add weight to his estimate of the signification of the little that was then known 
of the organization of Chiromys, nevertheless, in both editions of his richly stored 
‘Handbuch der Zoologie,’ retains the Aye-aye among the Rodents, remarking that it 
‘ «Pécade Philosophique,’ no. 28, 1796. This term, having been appropriated by botanists for a genus of 
Leguminose, has been allowed to lapse by the general consent of zoologists, including Geoffroy himself, who, 
with De Blainville and all original investigators of the animal, have communicated their observations on it as 
the Chiromys of Cuvier (Legons d’Anat. Comp. vol. i., 1800). 
2 «Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium,’ 8vo, 1811. 
* «Tableaux de Zoographie,’ 1813. 
* «Handbuch der Naturgeschichte, &c., Zoologie,’ 8vo, 1816. 
* « Observations on the Classification of the Mammalia,’ Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. xii. p. 408 (note). 
* «Mais qui tiennent presque autant des Quadrumanes que des Rongeurs” (p. 348). 
