THE GHOSTS OF THE TROPICAL FOREST 15 
surface of the ocean of trees, and at the first approach 
of dawn seek refuge from the hateful day in the dark 
recesses of some aged and hollow trunk. There is 
nothing like the loris or the lemur in the fauna of 
temperate Europe. We may rather compare them to 
a race of arboreal moles, the condition of whose life is 
darkness and invisibility. But, unlike the moles, the 
smaller members of these rarely seen tribes are among 
the most beautiful and interesting creatures of the 
tropics, though the extreme difficulty of capturing 
creatures whose whole life is spent on the loftiest 
forest trees, is further increased by the reluctance of 
the natives to enter the deserted and pathless forests. 
The beautiful lemurs, most of which are found in 
Madagascar, are further believed by the Malagasi to 
embody the spirits of their ancestors ; and the weird 
and plaintive cries with which they fill the groves at 
night, uttered by creatures whose bodies, as they cling 
to the branches, are invisible, and whose delicate 
movements are noiseless, may well have left a doubt 
on the minds of the first discoverers of the island as 
to whether these w r ere not in truth the cries and 
wailings of true lemures , the unquiet ghosts of the 
departed. 
Several of the larger lemurs are to be found at the 
Zoo, and though these suffer so much if unduly 
exposed to the light that before long they lose their 
sight, they may occasionally be seen in their cages. 
Others, the rarest and most delicate members of the 
race, are so entirely creatures of darkness that their 
