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 Lemur es poetical or IJnncean. 



ie IV. As to his countiy, 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 Garrow 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 was 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 



