102 THE FAUNA OF 



tion of structure seem to be associated with the fact 

 that the lemurs here are protected by isolation, living 

 as they do on an island where there are no true monkeys 

 nor apes, and where the carnivores of the cat family 

 are absent, members of the less differentiated civet 

 alliance taking their place. 



Lemurs are less intelligent than monkeys, and much 

 less highly differentiated, but they are no less definitely 

 adapted to arboreal life. It is therefore the more 

 interesting to find that, just as baboons are monkeys 

 which have abandoned the arboreal life, so in Mada- 

 gascar we find the ring-tailed lemurs, foxy-looking 

 animals, which live among rocks in regions where trees 

 are virtually absent. We have already spoken of the 

 fact that the galagos of West Africa have an elongated 

 ankle which, though the mechanism is a little different, 

 gives them the power of leaping like a frog. The same 

 peculiarity occurs in the mouse-lemurs (Chirogale) of 

 Madagascar, and is even better developed in the Httle 

 tarsier (Tarsius) of the Mal&y region, which progresses 

 by leaping from one branch to another, or from one 

 end of a branch to the other. 



We have not hitherto spoken of bats here, because 

 those forms which occur in temperate regions show no 

 special adaptation to any particular type of habitat. 

 It is otherwise with the large fruit-bats, which are 

 practically limited to the tropical regions of the Old 

 World, where they are chiefly found in forests. They 

 are entirely absent from the New World, but in the 

 east extend southwards to the island continent of 

 Australia and to Tasmania, though not to New Zealand. 

 The fruit-bats are larger than the insect-eating forms, 

 the common fruit or fox-bat of India measuring four 

 feet from tip to tip of the wing. Their mastery of the 



