42 Quadrumana. MAMMALIA. Lemurid.®. 
whatever may have been their peculiar claims to such 
an honour, there is no doubt that in the sixteenth, 
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries they were the 
favourite companions of the most fashionable ladies of 
Europe, and probably had even more tenderness 
lavished upon them than is bestowed upon the 
lap-dogs of the present day. We find the word 
marmozet applied to young children as a term of 
endearment by several writers of the last century, A 
remarkable indication of the earl}'- prevalence of the 
taste for having marmozets as pets, rendered the more 
striking by the absurd anachronism involved in it, is 
furnished b}' the fact that Guido has introduced one of 
these animals into his picture of the Abduction of 
Helen. 
Of this group, which includes only a single genus, 
the species appear to be rather numerous, about thirty 
having been already described, whilst, from the accounts 
given by recent travellers, there can be little doubt that 
many more remain to be discovered. As, however, 
they are all very similar, both in structure and habits, 
we shall only refer to a few of the best known species. 
THE COMMON MARMOZET {Jacchus vulgaris), Plate 
3, fig. 9, a native of Brazil, is of an ash colour, with 
the rump barred with brown, and the tail variegated 
with darker and ligiiter rings ; the head and back of 
the neck are of a reddish-brown colour, and on the 
sides of the head, both before and behind the ears, are 
numerous long hairs of an ash colour. It measures 
about eight inches in length, whilst its tail is nearly 
eleven inches long. 
THE BLACK-TUFTED MARMOZET (J. penicillatus), 
also a native of Brazil, closely resembles the preceding, 
but has the head and the tufts of long hair about the 
ears black ; the latter character also occurs in the 
White-headed Marmozet (J. leucocephalus), in which, 
however, the whole front of the head is white, whilst 
the general colour of the fur is reddish. 
THE MABIKINA {J. Rosalia), Plate 3. fig. 10, belongs 
to a section of the marmozets which has been regarded 
by M. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire as forming a distinct 
genus {Midas), characterized by having the lower 
incisor teeth short and broad, whilst in the rest of the 
family they are long and narrow. It is a beautiful 
little creature of a golden yellow colour, with the head 
and shoulders covered with long hair, forming a sort of 
mane, which has obtained it the name of the Lion 
monkey from some authors. It occurs in several parts 
of South America, especially in Guiana, Brazil, and 
Peru, and, from the beauty of its silky fur, its gaiety, 
and gentleness, it was formerly one of the greatest 
favourites of all the marmozets. The species was first 
described by Brisson, from a living specimen in the 
[jossession of Madame de Pompadour. 
THE PINCHE {J. GEdipus), another pretty little 
species inhabiting the same countries as the marikina, 
has the long hairs confined to the forehead and the 
crown of the head, where they form a sort of crest or 
tuft of a white colour, the general colour of the fur 
being a tawny brown, with the lower parts white, the 
face black, the ears reddish, and the tail red at the 
base and black at the tip. 
The marmozets close the great and interesting group 
of the Simiae, which, as we have seen, includes those 
species which approa;ch most nearly to humanity in 
their structure, and exceed all other animals in natural 
intelligence, whilst the last members of the series cannot 
be regarded as greatly superior, in either respect, to 
creatures which the necessities of classification compel 
us to place at a great distance below them. 
In the second group of the Quadrumana, that of the 
ProsimicB or Lemurs, the general animal character of 
the species is equally if not more strongly marked than 
in the marmozets, and yet every species exhibits the 
quadrumanous character in perfection, the thumbs of 
all the four extremities being opposable. They are dis- 
tinguished from the Simiae, as already stated (p. 15), 
by the presence of a claw upon the first finger of the 
hinder hands, although the thumbs'and the remainder 
of the fingers on both pairs of hands are almost invari- 
ably furnished with flat nails. The incisor teeth are 
variable in number, being frequently unequal in the 
two jaws ; the canines are always present, and usually 
of considerable size, and the molars, of which there are 
either five or six on each side, are often acutely tuber- 
cular, indicating an insect diet. 
The whole of the Prosiinise are inhabitants of the Old 
World, and the majority of them are confined to the 
large island of Madagascar, where they are almost the 
only representatives of their order. 
Family IV.— LEMURID^. 
Of the species peculiar to the remarkable island of 
Madagascar, by far the greater number belong to the 
family of the Lernuridie or true Lemurs. In these the 
general form of the body greatly resembles that of a 
cat set rather high upon its legs ; the thumbs are all 
opposable, and the first finger of the forehands well 
developed ; the muzzle is elongated and pointed some- 
thing like that of a fox, from which circumstance the 
name of Fox-nosed monkeys has frequently been applied 
to the lemurs. The eyes are large and placed on the 
front of the head, the body is clothed with a thick soft 
fur, and the tail is long and full. 
But the most positive distinctive, character of the 
family consists in the number of the teeth, of which 
there are thirty-six, namely, four incisors, two canines, 
and six molars in each jaw. The upper incisors 
usually form two pairs, separated by a small space, and 
placed almost perpendicularly in the jaw ; the lower 
ones are much longer, and project almost in a horizontal 
direction ; the upper canines are much longer than the 
lower ones, and the salient tubercles of the molars 
indicate frugivorous habits. 
These beautiful animals, of which numerous species, 
varying in size from that of a marten to that of a large 
cat or fox, occur in Madagascar, are nocturnal in their 
habits, coming forth in troops from their hiding-places 
at sundown to exhibit their wonderful activity amongst 
the branches of the trees, through which they sweep 
wiih a swiftness and silence that induced Linnmus to 
compare the species known to him to lemures or ghosts. 
Their food, as already remarked, consists to a great 
extent of fruits, but they also feed freely on insects, 
