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THE GREAT DOG-SUPERSTITION 285 
Fortunately such a feeling or instinct can be amply 
gratified without the dog; there are scores, per- 
haps hundreds, of species incomparably before this 
animal in all estimable qualities, which can be 
touched with hand and lips without defilement. 
Only a few need be mentioned in this place. 
One of the first animals worthy of so high a 
distinction, which would occur to many travelled 
men, is the marmoset: a fairy monkey in its 
smallness and extreme beauty, clothed in long soft 
hair with a lustre as of spun silk; in manners 
pleasantly tricksy, but not scatter-brained and 
wildly capricious like its larger irresponsible rela- 
tions, which is an advantage. No visitor to the 
Brazils can have failed to be charmed with these 
small animals, which are frequently kept as pets by 
ladies, and among pets they are surpassed by none 
in attachment to their mistress. 
A nobler animal, capable of endearing itself to 
man as well as woman, is the lemur, of which there 
are several very beautiful species. Strong, agile, 
swift and graceful in action as the monkey, to 
which it is related, but with an even, placid dis- 
position; monkey-like in form, but without the 
monkey’s angularities and that appearance of 
spareness which reminds one of a naked, half- 
starved Hindoo, he has a_ better - proportioned 
figure for beauty, and his dark, richly coloured 
coat of woolly fur gives a pleasing roundness to his 
form. Moreover, he has not got the monkey’s 
pathetic old man’s withered countenance, but a 
