APES 23 



forests of Brazil, and are clothed with black or brown hair, which 

 furnishes a good fur. Their tail is as long as their body, very muscular, 

 and naked below at the tip. As a prehensile organ it is without equal, 

 serving, in fact, as a one-fingered hand. By its means the animal 

 attaches itself to a branch, not letting go until it has obtained a sure 

 hold with its hands. Suspended by the tail it swings and sways in the 

 air, with its tail it fetches food out of clefts and chinks, and grasps or 

 reaches any object. It has under its tongue a large bony drum, by 

 which the voice of the animal is strikingly increased in force. The 

 awful concerts performed by these animals in the morning and evening 

 almost make one believe " all the wild beasts of the woods have suddenly 

 risen in mortal combat with each other." 



ORDER II.: LEMURS (PROSIMII). 



Fore-limbs with hands, hind-limbs with grasping feet. All fingers with 

 flat nails (like man), only the second toe with a claw. Face hairy. 



In the order of Lemurs are contained a number of animals which in 

 structure and mode of life present various differences, and which vary in 

 size from that of a cat to that of a rat. They live in the tropical forests 

 of the Old World, especially of Madagascar. Being true arboreal 

 animals, they possess, like the apes (to which, however, they are not 

 so closely related as the fact suggests), hands and prehensile feet ; and 

 their habits being nocturnal, their eyes are large, with very dilatable 

 pupils (compare with owl and cat). They have a thick woolly fur, which 

 protects the sensitive creatures from the penetration of moisture in the 

 dew-drenched foliage of the forest trees. The most curious of all these 

 animals is the Spectre Lemur (Tarsius spectrum) of the Sunda Islands. 

 The enormous owl-like eyes, and the slender skinny hands and feet, with 

 the pads beneath the finger and toe tips (resembling those of the tree- 

 frogs), in fact, give the remarkable creature a somewhat ghostly appear- 

 ance. Familiar denizens of Zoological Gardens are the ordinary Lemurs 

 or Fox-apes {Lemur) from Madagascar, which have an elongated head 

 like that of a fox. 



ORDER III.: BEASTS OF PREY (CARNIVORA). 



Flesh-eating predatory animals with strong canine and more or less 

 sharp-cutting molar teeth. Limbs with four or five toes, invariably 

 provided with claws. 



