: Uncommon Pets 351 
The chief articles of diet for the various species of lemurs are bread and milk, 
fruit and eggs; bananas are usually considered a very special tit-bit, but raisins and 
vegetables may be given. Lemurs are almost entirely nocturnal in thew habits. They 
sometimes, but not always, adapt themselves to taking their meals in the day-time. 
Usually, however, the food, unless it be some tit-bit, is left untouched if placed in 
the cage during the day, and is nearly always used up in the night hours. About 
eight in the evening is the hour when lemurs get lively and commence feeding. 
They do not commence their meal before they have thoroughly cleaned themselves. 
After this process is over they begin to think about their food; the choicest morsels 
are nearly always picked out first and the inferior portions left till later on. 
It occasionally happens, when a pair are kept together, that they breed in a 
state of captivity, but it must be admitted that this is a very uncommon event. 
Only one young is produced at a birth. Should any of my readers be fortunate 
enough to have such an event happen in their menagerie, they must at once take 
the male away for at least three months, and take every care that neither the 
mother nor the young is disturbed or alarmed from any cause, ‘The young lemur will 
not leave its parent for at least six months, and will only come down from her to 
stretch its limbs and make essays at independent movements when there is- no one 
near. Should its owner come near, it will at once return to its former position on the 
back of its mother, where it clings tightly by means of its prehensile tail and 
by embedding its hands and feet well mto her fur, by this means holding on so 
well that the mother can climb up and down the wire front and tree-trunk of her 
cage without the young one showing the slightest fear or losing its grasp. 
Lemurs are not so intelligent as their relatives the monkeys, but they are easily 
tamed and soon get used to human society, becoming very affectionate to their owners 
after a short space of time. If two or more be kept, they are very sociable one 
towards the other, and may generally be noticed huddled up together, evidently to keep 
themselves as warm and comfortable as possible. They must be very gently handled, 
as they are rather nervous animals and are rather given to biting. The ring- 
tailed species seldom 
uses its teeth but 
strikes out with its 
hands, scratching so 
vigorously that it 
often inflicts very 
nasty wounds with 
its claws. Possibly it 
is this feline charac- 
teristic that has led 
to it being called the 
Madagascar Cat. 
The price of 
these animals varies 
from two or three 
pounds upwards, the 
ring-tailed lemur 
beimmg the cheapest 
and easiest to pro- Pree — see 
cure and the most frewis mediand, F.Z.S. | —_ ia 
hardy. _ CROWNED LEMURS. 
