APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS 27 
almost entirely wanting. Egoism, which is a sign of humam dementia, is a very leading 
characteristic of all monkeys. There is no doubt that the baboons might be trained to be 
useful animals if they always served one master. Le Vaillant and many other travelers have 
noted this. But they are too clever, and at the bottom too ill-tempered ever to be trust- 
worthy, even regarded as “watches,” or to help in minor manual labour. Baboons would 
make an excellent substitute for dogs as used in Belgium for light draught; but no one 
could ever rely on their behaving themselves when their master’s eye was elsewhere. 
Taken as a family, the monkeys are a feeble and by no means likeable race. They are 
“undeveloped” as a class, full of promise, but with no performance. 
THE LEMURS 
THE South American monkeys, with their squirrel-like 
forms and fur, are followed by a beautiful and -cjyugs gy © interesting group 
of creatures, called the Lemurs, with their , za" cousins the Lorises, 
Maholis, and Pottos. Their resemblance to 4 yp monkeys is mainly in 
their hands and feet. These are real and y’ very highly developed 
hands, with proper thumbs. The second toe on the hind foot nearly 
always terminates in a long, sharp claw. “Elia,” the Indian natur- 
' alist, who kept them as pets no- ticed that they used this to scratch 
themselves with. Some of them have the finger-tips expanded into a 
sensitive disk, full of extra nerves. Lemur means “ ghost.” 
“Unlike the lively squirrels and monkeys, they do not leave their 
hiding-places till the tropical darkness has fallen on the forest, 
when they seek their © food, not by descending to the ground, 
but by ascending to the , upper surface of the ocean of trees, 
and again, at the first ap- | proach of dawn, seek refuge from 
the light in the recesses of some dark and hollow trunk, 
The Rinc-TaILED LEMUR is as lively by day as night; but 
most of the race are so 4 entirely creatures of darkness that 
the light seems to p stupefy them. When wakened, 
they turn over like sleeping children, with the 
same inarticu- late cries and deep, uneasy sighs. 
But at night most are astonishingly active; 
they fy fron. ee heer teil eee tree to tree, heard, but invisible; 
son ‘hak the ee natives of Madagascar doubt 
Most of the smaller monkeys, as well as the baboons, are fond of eating : . 
whether they insects, Beetles, white ants, and flies are eagerly sought and devoured are not true dentures A the unqutet 
ghosts of their departed dead. 
Though the lemurs are here treated apart from the other animals of Madagascar, it will be 
obvious that they are a curious and abnormal tribe. This is true of most of the animals of that 
great island, which has a fauna differing both from that of the adjacent coast of Africa and from 
that of India or Australia. In the Fossa, a large representative of the Civets, it possesses a 
species absolutely unlike any other. The Aye-aye is also an abnormal creature. Nor must it 
be forgotten that Madagascar was until recently the home of some of the gigantic ground-living 
birds. But, after all, none of its inhabitants are more remarkable than its hosts of lemurs, some 
of which are to be met with in almost every coppice in the island. There are also many extinct 
kinds. 
Exquisite fur, soft and beautifully tinted, eyes of extraordinary size and colour (for the pupil 
shuts up to a mere black line by day, and the rest of the eye shows like a polished stone of rich 
brown or yellow or marble gray), are the marks of most of the lemurs. But there are other 
lemur-like creatures, or “lemuroids,’ which, though endowed with the same lovely fur, like 
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