344 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
especially being similarly furnished with several sharp cusps or points, which are regarded as 
characteristic of Insect-ea.ting Mammals. All the teeth are implanted in the jaws by roots. 
In the development of the tail, and the nature of the covering of the skin, the Insectivora present 
considerable diversities, which will be referred to hereafter. Their feet generally consist of five toes, 
all armed with claws, and nearly all are plantigrade — that is to say, they apply the whole, or nearly 
the whole, of the sole of the foot to the ground in walking. With a single exception (Potamogale, 
which is rather anomalous in some other respects), all the Insectivora are provided with complete 
clavicles, or collar -bones — a character which serves to distinguish them from the Carnivora, in which 
the collar-bones are cither deficient or iinpeifiectly developed. The teats are generally numerous, and 
situated on the abdomen, the only exceptions being the anomalous Colugo, or so-called Plying Lemur, 
and the Golden Moles, in which the teats are situated on the breast. 
Zoologists are now pretty well agreed as to the classification of these animals, although there are 
still differences of opinion as to the best arrangement of the families, and some minor points. The 
classification here adopted is founded upon that proposed by Professor Mivart in 1871, and afterwards 
modified by Professor Theodore Gill. In this the whole order is divided into nine families, the first of 
which is so anomalous, and so divergent from all the rest in its characters, as to have led to its being 
treated as constituting a distinct sub-order (Dermoptera). 
FAMILY I.— GALEOPITHECIILE, OK COLUGOS. 
The animals which constitute this family, now regarded as constituting only two species (although 
the right even of one of these to specific rank is somewhat doubtful), are in truth amongst the most 
anomalous of Mammals. In their characters they present the most singular resemblances to at least 
three orders of Mammalia, in which they have been successively placed by various zoologists. Dis- 
covered by the Dutch voyagers of the seventeenth century in the luxuriant forests of the Eastern 
islands, their general Lemur-like aspect led the naturalists of those days to class them with those 
creatures, and Camelli, the distinguished botanist, gave them the name of Galeopithecus , which became 
in Petiver’s hands, “ Cato-simius volans,” or the Flying Cat-Monkey. Seba left out the Monkey, and 
called the animal simply the Flying Cat of Ternate (Felis volam ternatea) ; whilst Boutins, laying undue 
weight on its so-called flying powers, regarded it as a Bat, and gave it the name of Vespertilio admira - 
bilis. Linmeus accepted the Lemur hypothesis, and placed the animal in his genus Lemur, under the 
name of Lemur volam, or the Flying Lemur, and this position it continued to hold for a very long 
time, although Pallas separated it from the true Lemurs under Camelli’s name of Galeopithecus. No 
one ever reverted to the notion that the Colugo was a Bat, but from time to time various naturalists 
have pointed out that in many of its characters it approached the Insectivora ; and of late years the 
evidence in favour of its belonging to that order has been put forward so strongly, that nowadays 
nearly all zoologists regard it as an exceedingly aberrant member of the group, with more or less 
distinct tendencies towards the Bats and the Lemurs, and perhaps with some faint trace of the Mar- 
supial about it. Mr. Wallace, speaking, of course, from the standpoint of the theory of evolution, says 
that (e this animal seems, in fact, to be a lateral offshoot of some low form, which has survived during 
the process of development, of the Insectivora, the Lemuroidea, and the Marsupials, from an ancestral 
type.” There is no doubt that the beast is sufficiently dissimilar from all other known Mammals to 
give a considerable air of probability to the assumption of its being a survivor from some earlier 
period of the earth’s history ; but as it is here we must do the best we can with it, and its natural 
position is certainly between the true Insectivora and the Lemurs. As the characters of the family 
are founded virtually upon a single species, one description will serve. 
THE COLUGO, OK FLYING LEMLTK.* 
The species known to the older naturalists is found in Malacca, Sumatra, and Borneo, where it 
inhabits the forests, climbing the trees like a Squirrel by the aid of its claws, and passing through the 
air from one tree to another by means of a membrane ( patagium ), which extends along the sides of the 
* Galeopithecus volam s. 
