DAUBENTONIA 3 



who then saw the creature for the first time. Its discoverer had a 

 male and female alive on his ship where they lived for two months, sub- 

 sisting on cooked rice. A skin was brought to Paris and presented to 

 Buffon and was deposited in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes. 

 Buffon considered it allied to the Squirrels, and also that it had some 

 relation to the Tarsier (Tarsius — ?). Gmelin placed it in the genus 

 Sciurus and was followed by Cuvier, who however recognized the fact 

 that while the teeth were those of a rodent, the head was very similar 

 to that of the Quadrumana. Illiger associated it with Tarsius and 

 Galago ; and Owen in his masterly treatise on the 'Aye- Aye' (1. c.) 

 sums up its position as "related by affinity to the Quadrumana, and by 

 analogy to the Rodentia." It is now generally conceded to be the sole 

 representative of a distinct family of the Lemuroidea. 



It is remarkable for various peculiarities such as the nictitating 

 membrane of the eye, the naked ears studded with small protuberances, 

 the attenuated and wirelike middle finger, and the opposable thumb and 

 great toe. The fingers and toes are furnished with compressed pointed 

 claws, excepting the great toe, which has a flat nail and is placed at a 

 right angle to the other toes. The tail is long and bushy and is em- 

 ployed as a covering when the animal is sleeping. Teats two, abdomi- 

 nal. The os planum of the ethmoid not perceptible. 



Hon. H. Sandwith, when Colonial Secretary in the Mauritius, 

 obtained an example of the 'Aye-Aye' from Madagascar and exhibited 

 it in spirits to Prof. Owen, and this was the first specimen received in 

 England. In a letter to Prof. Owen, Dr. Sandwith says of this animal, 

 which he kept for some time in captivity, "I observe he is sensitive to 

 cold, and likes to cover himself up in a piece of flannel, although the 

 thermometer is now often 90° in the shade. On receiving him from 

 Madagascar, I was told he ate bananas, so of course I fed him on them, 

 but tried him on other fruit. I found he liked dates, which was a grand 

 discovery, supposing he be sent alive to England. Still I thought that 

 those strong rodent teeth, as large as those of a young beaver, must 

 have been intended for some other purpose than that of trying to eat 

 his way out of a cage, the only use he seemed to make of them, beside 

 masticating soft fruits. Moreover he had other peculiarities, e. g., 

 singularly large naked ears, directed forwards, as if for offensive rather 

 than defensive purposes ; then again, the second finger of the hand is 

 unlike anything but a monster supernumerary member, it being slender 

 and long, half the thickness of the other fingers, and resembling a piece 

 of bent wire. Excepting the head and this finger he closely resembled 

 a lemur. Now, as he attacked every night the woodwork of his cage, 



