THE HOME OF THE LEMUROIDA. 
217 
No Lemuroid has ever been found in the New World, or in Australia. It will then be convenient, 
in order to avoid too much anatomical description, to separate at first the Lemurs geographically, and 
the first to be noticed are those of Madagascar. 
As yet very little is known about the natural beauties of the great island of Madagascar. 
Very few books have been written about it, and nearly all of them are devoted to descriptions of the 
manners, customs, and religions of the different tribes. In fact, missionary work and political 
enterprise rendered the publication of such works necessary, and, with rare exceptions, the beauties of 
Nature, and the interesting fauna and flora, were treated with neglect.* Moreover, the jealousy of the 
governing powers prevented many of those travellers, who were competent to observe Nature and to 
appreciate her beauties, from exploring large tracts of the island. Descriptions, then, of the character- 
istic scenery, and of the habits of most of the animals of Madagascar, are exceedingly scarce ; and, 
indeed, those which do exist cannot all be believed, for one geographer, whose work teems with lively 
anecdotes, and with illustrations of forest and upland, is stated by a later writer never to have left 
the eastern coast. 
It appears, however, that the scenery of the great island is very varied. There is a long line of 
sea-coast, which is fertile in some places, but very sterile and unprofitable in the south especially. 
This coast-line limits the forest land, which forms a belt around the higher mountains of the central 
part of the country, and the hill or comparatively treeless district is broken and very romantic. 
Those who hunt the Lemuroida know that it is useless to seek for certain kinds everywhere ; 
and, indeed, their experience proves that each of the different districts of the island has a peculiar little 
assemblage of these “Half Apes” amongst its trees. The silence amongst the woods, where the 
luxuriance of vegetation is extraordinary, is most remarkable. It is so different from the noise and 
motion within tropical forests in other parts of the world, and it is only at the end of the day, when 
the short twilight approaches its close, that the quiet solemnity of the scene is broken by the cries and 
agile movements of the various Lemuroida. The quietude is produced by tine absence of the whole of 
the Monkey tribes from Madagascar, for they are the great noise-makers of the forests of other tropical 
countries, and by the indisposition of most of the Lemuroids to move by daylight. They hide 
themselves in nests of leaves or amongst the densest foliage, and some seek the tops of the highest 
trees for safety. They seem to know that the hunter will seek them by day if possible. But as the 
dusk approaches, the quiet, solemn-looking creatures begin to move, jump, swing, and run along the 
branches with a wonderful dexterity and rapidity. They rarely come to the ground, and when they 
do so, their gait is clumsy, but up in the trees their motions are graceful and noiseless. They cry out 
to each other, and appear to take a delight in disturbing the echoes of the night, and after eating their 
fill they become quieter towards dawn, when they retire to their hiding-places looking dazed and half- 
blinded by the light. Some of the kinds called Indris , now about to be described, illustrate these 
remarks very well ; thus one species is only found in little patches of forest land, quite in the extreme 
south of the island, where the country is sandy and j^oor, whilst a second is found in the north-east of 
the island amongst the luxuriant woodland. Some keep to the districts where the bamboos abound, 
much to the disgust of the hunter, for the covert is thick, and the leaves very destructive to clothing. 
Probably it is the difficulty in trapping and shooting some kinds, and their niglit-life, which gives them 
a superior intelligence in the eyes of the natives, who hold some which are very man-like, having no 
tail, or only just a stump, in great veneration. 
GENUS INDRIS. 
The distinguished traveller of Madagascar, M. Grandidier, found it very difficult to obtain much 
information about these Lemuroids, the name of which is the same as a native expression of surprise, 
such as “ Look, there it is ! ” He undertook a very perilous journey by sea and land to the south of the 
island, and there he found the favourite woods of some, and also in the south-west. He arrived in a coaster, 
in June, 1866, off Fort Dauphin in the south-east of the island, and being blown out to sea, gained 
* An exception must be made in favour of the “ Histoire Physique, Naturelle et Politique de Madagascar,” of M. Alfred 
Grandidier. 
