PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE AYE-AYE. 39 
in the event of there being any misgiving as to effecting a safe transmission of the 
living Aye-aye to England, it might be more advantageous to science if the animal were 
killed by chloroform, its arterial system injected, the cranial cavity exposed, the abdo- 
minal cavity and alimentary canal injected with alcohol, and the whole animal then 
immersed in a keg of colourless spirit. 
Before my reply reached Dr. Sandwith, the Aye-aye had escaped. It was, however, 
recaptured on a neighbouring sugar-plantation in the Mauritius. Accordingly, on the 
receipt of the above instructions, Dr. Sandwith at once proceeded to fulfil them ; and 
the result was the reception, at the British Museum, of our now unique example of the 
Chiromys madagascariensis, in the excellent state of preservation which has admitted of 
the following description being taken from it. 
Before, however, entering upon this, | may remark that other testimony than my 
correspondent’s had been given of the accuracy of Sonnerat’s original statement of the 
office of the slender middle digit of the fore paw. M. Liénard, of the island of 
Mauritius, communicated, in 1855, to the French Academy of Sciences’ some of his 
observations on a young male Aye-aye, which was brought from Madagascar, and lived 
some weeks in captivity. When a mango-fruit was offered, the Aye-aye first made a 
hole in the rind with his strong fore teeth, inserted therein his slender middle digit, and 
then, lowering his mouth to the hole, put into it the pulp which the finger had scooped out 
of the fruit. When one hand was tired, he used the other, and often changed them. 
On presenting him with a piece of sugar-cane, he held it by both hands, and, tearing it 
open with his teeth, sucked out the juice. 
A third observer, M. A. Vinson, affirms, in reference to an Aye-aye brought from 
Madagascar to the Ile de la Réunion in 1855, where it lived about two months in 
captivity, that it selected the larve it liked best by the sense of smell ; and that, when 
“café au lait” or ‘‘ eau sucrée”’ was offered, it drank by passing its long and slender 
digit from the vessel to its mouth with incredible rapidity’. 
§ 2. External Characters. 
The male Aye-aye, transmitted to me in spirits by the Hon. Dr. Sandwith, is repre- 
sented of one-half the natural size in Pls. XV., XVI. and XVII., and a profile of the 
* Comptes Rendus, Septembre 3™°, 1555. 
* «°T] ne youlait pas des larves de tous les arbres indistinctement ; il les reconnaissait en les flairant. II était 
trés-friand de café au lait, d’eau suerée, qu’il buvait 4 l'aide de ce long doigt qu’il passait et repassait incessam- 
ment du vase 4 la bouche avec une incroyable agilité” (Comptes Rendus de I’Acad. des Sciences, Oct. 1853, 
tom. xli. p. 640). [In the female Aye-aye, now living in the Gardens of the Zoological Society (August 1862), 
Mr. Bartlett informs me that, “in feeding, the fourth, which is the longest and largest finger, is thrust forward 
into the food, while the slender middle finger is raised above the others, and the first and second fingers are 
lowered : in this position the hand is drawn rapidly backward and forward, the side of the fourth finger passing 
between the tips of the animal’s mouth as the head is somewhat turned sideways; and in this manner the food 
is deposited in the mouth.’ ] 
