APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS 31 
tion of many northern mammals. Tropical animals 
often become torpid to avoid the famine caused by 
the hot season, just as creatures in cold countries 
hibernate to avoid the hunger which would otherwise 
come with winter. 
THE Stow Lemurs or LorisEs, AND TARSIERS 
Another group of lemuroids is distinguished from 
the foregoing by having the second finger of the fore 
paws either very short or rudimentary. The thumb 
and great toe are also set very widely apart from the 
other fingers and toes. A far more striking distinc- 
tion to the non-scientific eye is their astonishingly 
deliberate and slow movements. They have no tails, 
enormous eyes, and very long, slender legs. 
The Stow Loris is found in Eastern India and 
the Malay countries, where it is fairly common in the 
forests. The Bengali natives call it shkavmind: billi 
oe 4 
Photo by L. Medlandy F.Z.S-] [North Finchley (“bashful cat”), from its slow, solemn, hesitating 
SLENDER LORIS movements when in pursuit of insects. Of a slow 
This extraordinary creature has the habits of a chameleon when loris kept by him, Sir William Jones fa the Asiatic 
’ , 
seeking insects for food. The photograph is unique é 
Researches,” wrote: “At all times he seemed 
pleased at being stroked on the head and throat, and he frequently allowed me to touch his 
extremely sharp teeth. But his temper was always quick, and when he was unseasonably 
disturbed he expressed a little resentment, by an obscure murmur, like that of a squirrel. : 
When a grasshopper or any insect alighted within his reach, his eyes, as he fixed them on his 
prey, glowed with uncommon fire; and having drawn himself back to spring on his prey with 
greater force, he seized it with both his fore paws, and held it till he had devoured it. He never 
could have enough grasshoppers, and spent the whole night in prowling for them.” 
The SLENDER Loris, an equally curious creature, is only found in Southern India 
and Ceylon. Its food consists entirely of insects, which it captures by gradual, almost 
paralysed approach. Its has been described as a “ furry-coated chameleon.” A _ group 
of slow lemurs, living in Western Africa, are known as Porros. They are odd little quad- 
rupeds, in which the “ forefinger’ never 
grows to be more than a stump. The 
tail is also either sharp or rudimentary. 
They are as slow as the lorises in their 
movements. 
In the Malay islands a distant rela- 
tive, even more curiously formed, is found 
in the Tarsier. It has the huge eyes, . 
pointed ears, and beautiful fur of the 
galagos, but the tail is long, thin and 
tufted. The fingers are flattened out into 
disks, like a tree-frog’s. These creatures 
hop from bough to bough in a frog-like 
manner in search of insects. They are 
: 0 Photo by L, Medland, F.Z.8.]_ — [North Finchley 
not so large as a good-sized rat. ur ‘SLOW LORIS 
photograph does not give an adequate Another of the slow-moving ‘Toris group. These animals are not shown to the 
idea. of ‘the size of the eyes general public at the Zoo, but kept in a specially warmed room 
