92 



THE PROSiMIANS. 



My little friend was, on the whole, very engag- 

 ing; and, when he was found lifeless in the same 

 posture in which he would naturally have slept, I 

 consoled myself with believing that he had died 

 without pain, and lived with as much pleasure as 

 he could have enjoyed in a state of captivity." 



The Spectre-tarsier. 



This creature, known to naturalists as Tar- 

 siits spectrtim (fig. 35), ranges from Sumatra, 

 Java, and Borneo to Celebes and the Philip- 

 pines, and is the sole species of a very pecu- 

 liar genus. It is a small animal (body about 

 6, tail about 10 inches long), resembling the 

 jumping mouse or jerboa in general form, 

 with large round eyes, short fore-feet, long 

 jumping legs, and very long tufted tail. 



This little creature might be considered 

 as a one-sided development of the type of the 

 loris. The head and especially the skull 

 have in fact much resemblance to those of 

 the latter; only the circular, yellow, or light 

 brown eyes, gleaming by night as they do, 

 are so enormous, that according to the ex- 

 pression of one observer, the head, sitting 

 upon the short thick neck, appears like a 

 blind lantern, capable of being turned by a 

 ball-and-socket joint in all directions. The 

 body is round, compact, covered to the wrist 

 and ankle with fine thick woolly fur of a 

 brownish -gray colour, but lighter on the 

 under side. The muzzle is broad, the small 

 nose not prominent, the ears of moderate 

 size, but yet provided with internal raised 

 borders. The fore-limbs are very short, the 

 hands long, the thumb slightly developed 

 and not opposable, the middle finger the 

 longest, all furnished with flat nails, which 

 are a little arched in the middle. The length 

 of the legs is mainly due to the almost naked, 

 cylindrical, fleshless, tarsal region of the foot, 

 which is formed out of the elongated ankle- 

 bones known as the scaphoid and calcaneum. 

 The foot has very long spread-out toes. 

 The great toe is large and powerful, and it, 

 as well as the fourth and fifth toes, carry flat 



nails, while the second and third toes have 

 short erect claws. All the digits both of the 

 fore and hind feet have on the under side 

 callous round cushions, by means of which the 

 creature appears to adhere firmly to foreign 

 surfaces like the tree-frog. The tail, as in 

 the jerboas, is excessively long, cylindrical 

 in shape, and adorned at the end with a kind 

 of tuft. It serves as a support in sitting and 

 as a rudder in leaping. 



The dentition is a purely insectivorous one. 

 In the upper jaw incisors, canines, and pre- 

 molars have the same sharp somewhat hook- 

 like form. The innermost incisor is the most 

 prominent, the second is smaller, the canine 

 again larger, the first premolar very small, 

 the second larger, the third two-cusped, the 

 molars broader than long with sharp cusps 

 on the outer edge. In the lower jaw the 

 canine is the largest tooth, and the incisors 

 are small but vertically placed. Dental 



formula = ^4 teeth. 



I ■ I • 3 ■ 3 



Nocturnal in their habits, though even by 

 day they never sleep very soundly, these 

 little creatures, which live in pairs in the 

 densest parts of bamboo thickets, are regarded 

 by the natives with dread and abhorrence. 

 They have every kind of evil attributed 

 to them. By day they are sulky and ill- 

 humoured and sleep a great deal, but by 

 night they are lively and amuse themselves 

 with jumping, going noiselessly after their 

 prey, which consists solely of insects, crabs, 

 and small lizards. They catch their booty 

 with the hands while jumping, and appear to 

 be very voracious. Only one young one is 

 brought forth at a birth, and it comes into 

 the world already covered with hair; even on 

 the second day it begins to climb, but as a 

 rule it clings to the legs of its mother, which 

 for a long time carries it about with it, often 

 holding It In its mouth as cats do. In 

 captivity the creature becomes confiding and 

 affectionate, but no one has yet succeeded 

 in bringing a living specimen to Europe. 



