90 SLOW LEMUR 



of Buffon and Linnaeus ; nor can I suggest any 

 other, since the Pandits know little or nothing of 

 the animal: the lower Hindus of this province ge- 

 nerally call it Lajjabanor, or the Bashful Ape, and 

 the Musselmans, retaining the sense of the epithet, 

 give it the absurd appellation of a cat ; but it is 

 neither a cat nor bashful ; for though a Pandit 

 who saw my Lemur by day-light, remarked that 

 it was lajjalu, or modest (a word which the Hin- 

 dus apply to all sensitive plants), yet he only 

 seemed bashful, while in fact he was dimsighted 

 and drowsy ; for at night, as you perceive by his 

 figure, he had open eyes, and as much boldness as 

 any of the Lemures poetical or Linncean. 



" IV. As to his country, the first of the species, 

 that I saw in India, was in the district of Tipra, 

 properly Tripura, whither it had been brought, 

 like mine, from the Garrozv mountains ; and Dr. 

 Anderson informs me, that it is found in the 

 woods on the coast of Coromandel : another had 

 been sent to a member of our society from one of 

 the Eastern isles ; and though the Loris may be 

 also a native of Silan, yet I cannot agree with M. 

 de Buffon, that it is the minute, sociable, and do- 

 cile animal mentioned by Thevenot, which it re- 

 sembles neither in size nor in disposition. 



" My little friend was, on the whole, very en- 

 gaging ; and when he Avas found lifeless, in the 

 same posture in which he would naturally have 

 slept, I consoled myself with believing that he 

 had died without pain, and lived with as much 



