90 SLOW LEMUR 
of BuiFon and Linnaeus; nor can I suggest any 
other, since the Panaits know little or nothing of 
the animal: the lower Hindus of this province ge- 
nerally call it Lajjahanor, 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 Linnczan, 
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 Garroiv 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 BuiFon, 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 
