CHE BLACK LEMUR. 
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tlie crew of Malagasy sailors, who declared it was an omen of evil to the ship, and that some fearful 
calamity might be expected. I had felt so much interest in the sociable and apparently gentle animal 
on board ship, that I should have been glad to have seen some of its species in their own forest homes ; 
but though numbers were evidently near, none of them came within sight.” 
This Lemur has, as its name implies, a black-and-white fur ; the white tint is very general near 
the skin, and black is put on in patches, the tail being completely of that colour. It has a long face 
and skull, with a high nose and a narrow space between the eye cavities. 
SKELETON OF the HUFFED LEMUR. ( Modified after Le Blainville.) 
THE BLACK LEMUR * 
It is this Lemur which has a mate with white whiskers and a white patch on the lower part of 
the back, whilst its own colour is uniformly black. 
It inhabits the north-west of Madagascar, and the Sakalaves call it Acoumba. M. Pollen noticed 
one of the white-whiskered yellowish-red coloured females with a little black young one (a male) 
on its shoulders, and when the mother was shot, it fell with her, so tightly had it grasped her wool. 
They live in companies, and like the very tops of the tallest trees of the forest for them home ; they 
are usually seen in the evening, when they make a great deal of noise with their concert of grunts and 
cries, and they jump from bough to bough quite as quickly as a bird flies. They have a trick of 
falling down suddenly, when pursued, into the underwood, and when the hunter searches for them they 
will be seen rushing off to a distant tree. When reared in captivity they are docile and affectionate. 
They like to sit on their keeper’s shoulder, and will eat nearly everything that is oflered to them. 
Fruit they prefer, but they will crack a bird’s skull and eat the brain. In some districts of Mada- 
gascar these Lemurs are not allowed to be killed or to be kept either dead or alive, on account of some 
superstitious ideas of the natives. 
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of this Lemur is the marked padded nature of the hand. 
The palm of the hand is longer than the fingers, and the thumb is not much bigger than the little 
* Lemur niger. 
