252 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
these animals, that the head is really broader than theirs, and that the furthest end of the muzzle sur- 
mounts a perfect lip which hides four great front teeth, two above and two below. The tail is a veiy 
prominent object, and is longer than the body ; it is straight, very bushy, flexible, and is covered with 
long coarse hairs, being thicker at the end than at the root. All the rest of the body, except the ears, 
nose, and the palms of the feet and hands, which are naked, is covered with a fur that is dense and furry 
underneath, and long and hairy at the ends ; and it is these long hairs which give the general tint to 
the animal. The prevailing tint is a deep fuscous approaching to black ; there is a little dark-red 
underneath, and yellow-grey on the throat nearest the head. Everywhere the dark colour is relieved 
by long scattered white hairs, which are very conspicuous on the back. On the back and tail the hair 
attains the length of from three to four inches. It has widely-open staring eyes, and whilst it is lively 
enough in the dark, it looks dazed and stupid in daylight. As if to render the animal more curious 
than ever, the teats, or mamraje for suckling the young, are not on the breast, but in the lower part of 
the body, and close to the groins, there being one on each side. 
The Aye- Aye, so strangely constructed, has been a great puzzle to naturalists, and there have been 
many keen debates about its natural history. It is about one hundred years since Sonnerat stated 
that, although the Aye- Aye much resembles a Squirrel, “yet it differs therefrom by some essential 
characters, being also allied to the Lemur and the Monkey;” and in describing the fore-foot, he 
specifies the long slender joints of the skeleton-looking middle finger, which the animal, he says, “ makes 
use of to draw out of holes in trees the worms which form its food.” Buftbn saw the skin of one of these 
specimens obtained by Sonnerat, and concluded that it is more closely allied to the genus of Squirrels 
than to any other, and that it also has more relation to a kind of Jerboa. After describing 
the hind feet, Buffon remarks that the opposite character of the thumb with the flattened nail 
separates the Aye-Aye widely from the Squirrel, and that of all animals that have a flat great 
toe-thumb nail, the Tarsier, a kind of Jerboa, is that which most resembles it. He ranked the 
Aye- Aye with the Rodents, or Gnawers. Nevertheless, Cuvier considered it to be one of the 
Squirrels, and by no means ignoring the opposite hind thumb, he still believed it to be an unusual or 
anomalous kind, but he was greatly led by the belief that the animal gnawed wood invariably for the 
sake of its only food, the worms and grubs. About the same time a German (Sehreber), by examining 
the limbs, decided that the Aye- Aye was a Lemur, and he called it Lemur psilodactyhts, or the 
“ bare-fingered ” Lemur ; and after a while Cuvier obtained the skull and part of the limb-bones from 
Sonnerat's specimen, and examined the first especially. Then the great front teeth of the Aye- Aye, 
and the space behind them, influenced the great anatomist, who saw that it had the teeth of Gnawers 
(Rodents), and skull like that of the Quadrumana, so he placed it in the list of doubtful animals. 
After his time, most anatomists considered the animal to be clearly allied to the Squirrels, and 
placed it amongst the Rodentia. But in 1859 Owen, from whose works the above notices of the 
progress of opinion on this subject have been taken, received an important letter from Dr. Sandwith. 
C. B., and a specimen of the Aye- Aye. The following letter explains the habits, and Owen subsequently 
described the anatomy of the animal, and placed it in its present position in the classification. 
Dr. Sandwith wrote ; — “ After very great diffn.ulty and much delay I have at length obtained a 
fine healthy male, a real Aye-Aye, and he is enjoying himself in a large cage which I had constructed 
for him. And now I have some questions to ask you. Do you want him dead or alive - ? It will, of 
course, be much easier to send his dead body home, if that will do ; and if so, how am I to preserve 
.him? If you want him alive you must tell me so without delay, as I think it would be dangerous to 
send him home in the cold season. I observe he is sensitive of cold, and likes to cove]’ himself up in a 
piece of flannel, although the thermometer is now often 90° in the shade. He is a very interesting 
little animal, and from close observation I have learned his habits very correctly. On receiving him 
from Madagascar, I was told that he ate bananas, so of course I fed him on them, but tried him with 
other fruit. I found he liked dates, which was a grand discoveiy, supposing he be sent alive to 
England. Still I thought that those strong Rodent teeth, as large as those of a young Beaver, must 
have been intended for some other purpose than that of trying to eat his way out of a cage — the only 
use he seemed to make of them besides masticating soft fruits. Moreover, he had other peculiarities, 
singularly large naked ears, directed forward as if for offensive rather than defensive purposes ; 
then again the second finger of the hands is unlike anything but a monster supernumerary member, it 
