Botany and Zoology. 295 
the Lemuride, and at the same time add another to the admirable se- 
ries of monographs by which the great English anatomist has contribu- 
ted so largely to the ae of oOneey and physiology in our day. 
owever remarkable the mingling of Rodent and Quadrumanonus 
characters may be in the Aye-Aye, they are surpassed in the correla- 
tions of physical structure and strange habits. “The wide openin 
the eyelids, the large cornea and expansile iris, the subglobular lens and 
ministering ‘ flocculus’ seem designed to appreciate any feeble vibration 
that might reach the tympanum from the recess in the hard timber, 
through which the wood-boring larva may be tunneling its way by re- 
i ood of 
boring grubs. To extract these, there are, united with the common Le- 
ernsine characters, chizel-shaped incisors, resembling those of Rodents, 
and a most remarkable modification of the middle finger, which is not 
Mauritius, “a 27, 1859. 
sat = Mr. Owen: 
very great difficulty and much delay, I have at ey saying a + fine 
us healthy adult Aye-Aye, and he is enjoying himself in a large cage 
8 had constructed for him... .. . I observe that he i Ld st ag. he 
to cover himself up in a piece of flannel, although the bebompeets is now 
hes 90° in the shade. ....-. Now as he attacked every night the 1 wood-work of 
his cage, which I was gradaall y og with tin, I bethought myself of tying some 
work se. that he might gnaw these i <e had plea 
put in some la’ beanthae for him to ; but the others were straight 
sticks to cies wood- oe of hla Soe tee a he attacked. a 80 
cad 
c 
® 
e 
4 
eed his "strong teeth me ted stripped off the bark, 
ib tet eoeil, nnd sentient hs of a grub, which he daintily picked out out of 
i bad with the slender tapping finger, and conveyed the luscious morsel to his 
