TEE A YE- A YE. 
251 
numerous in the interior of the island. They are rare animals, and live a solitary life, or are found 
in pairs, but they never associate in bands of several individuals. They are essentially nocturnal in 
their habits, for they sleep all the day long in the thick bunches of leaves of the bamboos in the most 
impenetrable part of the forests, and they are therefore rarely seen, and are only met with quite by 
accident. The Aye- Aye feeds on the pith of the bamboos, and on sugar-canes, but it also loves 
Beetles and their grubs as a change of food. During the dark nights it awakens the echoes of the 
forest with a kind of plaintive grunting, and jumps from bough to bough, and clambers up the trees 
THE AYE-AYE. ( After Owen, Trans. Zool. Soc., but modified.) 
with great agility and vivacity, examining the bark of old trees most carefully in order to find its 
favourite insect-foo< l. 
As daylight approaches, the Aye- Aye ceases its lively play and forest-roaming, and moves into the 
sombre shades of the densest foliage ; there it avoids the light and the rays of the sun, and placing its 
head between the fore-feet, and encircling itself with its bushy tail, the now half-torpid creature sleeps 
on until the evening. 
The Aye-Aye is about three feet in length, including the long tail, and there is a half Pox, half 
Lemur look about it, with a little of the Squirrel. The hind feet at first sight are like those of a 
Monkey, as are also the limbs ; but the hands are not in keeping with the rest, for the fingers are of all 
kinds of lengths, and the middle one looks as if it were atrophied, and wasted. A little care, however, 
proves that the ears, so widely open and spoon-shaped, and nearly naked, are larger than those of 
