The Galago. MAMMALIA. -The Tarsier. 45 
which it resembles much in its general characters, it is 
a nocturnal animal, slow in its motions, feeding partly 
upon fruits and tender leaves, and partly upon insects 
and other animal matters. 
THE SENEGAL GALAGO {Galago senegalensis), 
Plate 4, fig. 14. — The galagos, which constitute the 
remainder of this family, are elegant squirrel -like 
creatures, with rounded heads, large eyes, large mem- 
branous ears, and long tails. They differ from the 
potto in the elongation of the tarsal portion of the foot, 
and in the greater development of the first finger 
of the hands. In their dentition and most of their 
otlier characters they agree with the preceding species. 
Like these they are nocturnal animals, living amongst 
the branches of the forests, where they prey upon 
small birds and insects. Fruits also constitute a por- 
tion of their nourishment. 
The Senegal Galago, which is the best known 
species, is an elegant little creature rather larger than 
a squirrel, of a grey colour, with a reddish tinge on 
some parts, and with the lower surface paler or 
whitish. It inhabits a considerable portion of the 
African continent, occurring in Senegal, CaTraria, 
Abyssinia, and Mozambique. It was first discovered 
in the first-mentioned locality by the celebrated Adan- 
son, who describes its habits as intermediate between 
those of the monkeys and squirrels. It appears from 
the statements of the great French voj-ager and of 
later observers, that the galagos principally inhabit the 
great forests of acacias which furnish the gum-arabic 
of commerce, and that the Moors who bring them 
down from their native haunts give them the name of 
Gum animals, and declare that they feed upon that 
substance. It appears, indeed, that they will eat gum 
when offered to them ; but they show a very decided 
preference for insect food, those which have been 
observed in captivity being always on the watch for 
insects, exhibiting considerable.^xcitement when they 
only hear the sounds produced by these animals, and 
seizing upon any unlucky victim that may come within 
their reach with the greatest avidity. In their native 
haunts they display great agility upon the trees, 
amongst the branches of which they are always sport- 
ing at night, springing suddenly upon their insect prey 
with a velocity greatly aided by the length of their 
hinder limbs. They nestle in holes of the trunks of 
trees, which they line with soft beds of gi'ass and 
herbage for the reception of their young. 
Several other species of galago have been described 
— all from the African continent. The largest is the 
G. crassicaudaius, an inhabitant of Mozambique and 
Port Natal, which is about the size of a rabbit. 
Family VII.— TAIISIID^. 
The galagos, as already stated, are distinguished 
from the other members of their family by the great 
length of their tarsus, and the large size of their ears ; 
in these respects they show an evident approach to 
the little creatures which form the present family, 
and which might, perhaps, be included in the same 
group with them without much violence to a natural 
system. The tarsiers, however, exhibit so many 
peculiar characters, that although only a single species 
of the group is well-known, this may well be regarded 
as the type of a distinct family. The characters 
by which this is distinguished, independently of the 
elongation of the tarsus, are the presence of only 
two incisor teeth in the lower jaw, the uniformity of 
position of the four upper incisors, which do not stand 
in two pairs, and the existence of claws upon both the 
first and second fingers of the hinder hands. 
THE TAESIER {Tarsius Spectrzim), Plate 4, fig. 15, 
the only species of this family whose existence can be 
regarded as well established, is an inhabitant of several 
islands of the Indian archipelago, especially Celebes, 
Borneo, and Banca ; it also occurs in the Philippine 
Islands and Sumatra. It is an elegant little creature, 
about the size of a common rat, clothed with a soft 
reddish-brown fur, and furnished with a long slender 
tail, the extremity of which is tufted. The most 
remarkable peculiarity in its structure is the confor- 
mation of the hinder extremities, which are of great 
length, and upon which this little animal is described 
as leaping about in the forest like a frog. The tarsi 
are much elongated and very slender, but the feet are 
considerably widened at their extremity, and the toes 
exhibit a singular relative proportion. The inner toe, 
the opposable thumb of the hind feet, is large and 
powerful, but its next neighbour is the shortest of all ; 
the next toe and the outermost one are about equal in 
length, and that between them is the longest. By 
this means the foot acquires a singular bunched and 
deformed appearance, which, however, is probably in 
some way connected with the habits of the animal. 
The tarsier is a gentle, inoffensive, nocturnal animal, 
which may be easily tamed ; when it exhibits both 
intelligence and affection to those who have the care of 
it. It resides in the damp forests of the islands above 
mentioned, where it is said by Dr. S. Muller to frequent 
the tops of the trees, and its food is described by 
different writers as consisting partly of fruits and partly 
of insects. The malays call it Podje, and, according to 
Sir Thomas Baffles, the natives of Sumatra have such 
a superstitious dread of it, that if they chance to see a 
tarsier upon one of the trees in the vicinity of their 
rice fields, the}’’ will immediately abandon the spot from 
a fear that some misfortune will otherwise befall them. 
The true position of this curious creature was long a 
matter of doubt, some authors having arranged it with 
the jerboas, and others with the marsupial animals. 
Family VIII.— CHEIROMYID^. 
We have already stated (pp. 15, 16) that besides 
the Simim and Prosimim, or, as they may be called, the 
Monkeys and Lemurs, two other families are commonly 
placed in the present order, although the peculiarities 
of their structure are so remarkable that their true 
position may still be regarded as a matter of dispute. 
This is especially true of the present family, which 
would seem to constitute a connecting link between the 
widely distant orders of the Quadrumana and Rodentia, 
partaking so much of the characters of both, as to have 
been placed alternately, by different zoologists, some 
times in one and sometimes in the other of those order? 
