34 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE AYE-AYE. 



astonishment, " aye-aye ! " on beholding the odd-looking quadruped, suggested the name 

 which Sonnerat gave to it'. 



Biiffon, after his close examination of the skin of the Aye-aye presented to the Royal 

 Museum by Sonnerat, concludes that it is more closely allied to the genus of Squirrels 

 than to any other, and that it also has some relation to the kind of Jerboa which he 

 (Buffon) had called "Tarsier" in his 13th volume, 1769^. This animal is now recognized 

 as a Lemurine quadrumane. After describing the hind feet, BufFon remarks that "the 

 opposable character of the thumb, with the flattened nail, separates the species widely 

 from the genus of Squirrels ; and that, of all the animals that have the flattened thumb, 

 the ' Tarsier ' is that which most resembles the Aye-aye^." BufFon's acute discern- 

 ment of resemblances is thus well exemplified ; but as he believed the Tarsier to be a 

 kind of Jerboa (it is the " Woolly Jerboa " of Pennant), it is plain that he ranked the 

 Aye-aye with the Rodents. 



Gmelin, accordingly, entered the species as " Sciurus madagascariensis " in the 13th 

 edition of the ' Systema Naturje,' 1790. 



Cuvier, placing it under the same name at the end of the Squirrels, in his ' Tableau 

 Elementaire de I'Histoire Naturelle ' (Svo, 1798, p. 136), remarks, in reference to the 

 opposable thumb on the foot, that " it is, amongst the Rodents, what the Opossums 

 are amongst the Carnassials ;" and he adds, — " Sonnerat alleges that it subsists on the 

 worms which it extracts from the hollows of trees and fissures of the bark by means 

 of its slender digit*." Sonnerat, however, speaks only of the burrows or holes (" des 

 trous des arbres ") whence the Aye-aye extracts its larval food. 



Schreber, in whose system the limb-characters preponderated, placed the Aye-aye 

 in the genus Lemur, as L. psilodactylus ; and Dr. Shaw adopted the name and the 

 implied affinities^ De Blainville gave it a like position in his " Prodrome d'une 

 Nouvelle Distribution Systematique du Regne Animal," published in the 'Bulletin de 

 la Societe Philomathique ' (Paris, 1816), where the Aye-aye is placed amongst the 

 " Pithecoides," or the group that folbws the " Singes "". 



In the meanwhile, however, Cuvier had availed himself of the means at his command 



Op. cit. p. 124. Not the cry of the animal, as some writers have supposed. 



" II m'a paru se rapprocher du genre des Ecureuils plus que d'aueun autre ; il a aussi quelque rapport k 

 I'espece de Gerboise que j'ai donn(?e sous le nom de Tarsier, vol. xiii." (Hist. Nat. Supplement, vol. vii. p. 2C9). 

 ' "Ce caractere de doigt I'e'loigne beaucoup du genre de I'Ecureuil. De tons les animaux qui ont le pouce 

 aplati, le Tarsier est eelui qui se rapproche le plus de I'Aye-aye " {ib. p. 270). 



" Qu'il est parmi les Rongeurs ce que les p^dimanes sont parmi les Carnassiers." " Sonnerat prAend qu'il vit 

 des vers qu'il tire des creux des arbres et des fentes des e'corces, au moyen de son doigt plus grele " {op. cit. p. 136). 

 ' "Long-fingered Lemur" (General Zoology, vol. i. part 1. p. 109, pi. 34, 1800). 



" Pithe'coides, les Makis, les Loris, 1' Aye-aye," p. 117. Li a later work on the Aye-aye, published in 

 1841, as part of his 'Oste'ographie,' M. de Blainville alludes to a memoir on the animal read by him to the 

 Societe Philomathique in May 1816; but the 'Bulletin' for that year contains merely the reference above 

 cited, and iu a note the author states that want of space prevents his adding the explanatory remarks which his 

 table of Mammifers needed. 



