Quadrupeds. 7047 



Another very remarkable peculiarity of tliis little creature is his 

 manner of drinking. Having placed a finger-glass of water before him 

 I observed his movements ; he approached the vase, extended his 

 arm, and having plunged his wire-like finger into it he then passed it 

 obliquely into his mouth ; he repeated this movement with such 

 rapidity that the water seemed to run from the vase into his mouth. 

 It appears to me that this singular mode of drinking is the most con- 

 venient to him for extracting the water from the cavities of the trees, 

 the natural reservoirs to which he resorts for quenching his thirst. 



I have followed Cuvier's system, and have placed this animal among 

 the rodents; still, although this classification is as correct as any 

 other we may be disposed to adopt, it appears to be inexact. Food 

 is doubtless an important characteristic, many even say that it is the 

 most important ; certainly the teeth are the most necessary organs for 

 eating, yet, if we take them as a means of classification, it must be 

 acknowledged that we meet with strange contrasts ; in a word, is it 

 possible to compare for an instant this animal with the rat, either in 

 its habits, its form or its general aspect ? How different is the tail 

 from the scaly member of the beaver, and what a striking contrast 

 between the aquatic habits of the one and the climbing propensities of 

 the other ! Is it then consistent, because these two animals gnaw wood 

 and have file-like teeth, that they should be ranked in the same class ? 

 Far be it from me to criticize Cuvier, or to dispute anything which that 

 giant in Natural Science has advanced ; I merely wish to point out 

 the impossibility of arriving at a perfect classification. As for myself, 

 if I could set aside the shackles of Science and succeed in forgetting 

 all that T have learned, I should not hesitate for a moment to call this 

 animal a new species of lemur, and for this simple reason, — that although 

 it resembles the rat and the beaver in one respect, namely, the form of 

 the teeth, it resembles the lemur in all other respects; first, in its 

 general appearance ; next, in its long thin body, in its habit of climbing 

 trees, in the form of its claws, and especially in its long bushy tail. 

 It has many peculiarities which we do not find in the lemur, but 

 which are met with doubtless in the other animals I have previously 

 mentioned : its teeth, for example, resemble those of the rodent ; its 

 ears and eyes those of the bat, because, being a nocturnal animal, it 

 is necessary that all the rays of light should be concentrated in the 

 pupil, which is as large as that of a cat. 



Having heard that the natives of Madagascar affirm that the aye- 

 aye eats xylophagous larvae, and that it uses its wire-like finger to 

 extract them from the wood, I did not implicitly believe the story, 



