159 



a Squirrel. Presently he came to one of the worm-eaten branches, which he began to 

 examine most attentively; and bending forward his ears, and applying his nose close to 

 the bark, he rapidly tapped the surface with the curious second digit, as a Woodpecker 

 taps a tree, though with much less noise, from time to time inserting the end of the 

 slender finger into the worm-holes as a surgeon would a probe. At length he came to 

 a part of the branch which evidently gave out an interesting sound, for he began to tear 

 it with his strong teeth. He rapidly stripped off the bark, cut into the wood, and 

 exposed the nest of a grub, which he daintily picked out of its bed with the slender 

 tapping finger, and conveyed the luscious morsel to his mouth. I watched these pro- 

 ceedings with intense interest, and was much struck with the marvellous adaptation of 

 the creature to its habits, shown by his acute hearing, which enables him aptly to di- 

 stinguish the different tones emitted from the wood by his gentle tapping ; his evidently 

 acute sense of smell, aiding him in his search; his secure footsteps on the slender 

 branches, to which he firmly clung by his quadrumanous members ; his strong rodent 

 teeth, enabling him to tear through the wood ; and lastly, by the curious slender finger, 

 unlike that of any other animal, and which he used alternately as a pleximeter, a probe, 

 and a scoop"*. 



Soxxerat, besides specifying the compulsory food on which his captive Aye-aye 

 perished in two short months, not being able longer to sustain life thereon, describes 

 the long slender naked middle digit : — " il s'en sert pour tirer des trous des arbres les 

 vers qui sont sa nourriture "f . I understand this to mean that larvae — " vers " — are its 

 natural or staple food. The affirmation may have been made from Soxxerat's observa- 

 tions on Chiromys in a state of nature, or on the reports of natives of Madagascar, or 

 on both authorities. It is a better testimony of its natural " nourriture " than the com- 

 pulsory diet of confinement, and ought to be quoted in a consideration of the present 

 important question. 



For to what condition is Comparative Anatomy reduced if we reject the testimony 

 which Dr. Falcoxer does not cite, and admit, upon the testimony he does cite, that 

 Chiromys is a vegetable feeder ! Were the scalpriform teeth enabled, through the low 

 position of a terminal condyle, to gouge out the hard woody fibre for food in order that 

 the animal might masticate such fibre 1 Only upon this hypothesis could Chiromys be 

 cited as an exception to the correlation of such position of mandibular joint with animal 

 diet. But xylophagous habits involve complex ever-growing molars, like those of the 

 Voles, the Beavers, and Capybaras. A reference to the molar teeth of the Aye-aye at 

 once indicates its true diet, and the part played by the lower jaw and its chisels in 

 obtaining it. Observation of the living animal in its native woods vindicates the 

 Cuvierian principle, and gives the rational explanation of both dental and maxillary 

 machinery. Instead of being an exception, the low condyle enters into the rule of its 

 association with the getting of food of an animal nature. 



* Letter from Dr. Saxdwith, quoted in " Owen on the Aye-aye,'' Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. v. pt. 2. 1863, p. 37. 

 t Voyage aux Indes Orientales, &c., Paris, 4to, 1782, p. 122. 



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