FINGERS AND TOES. 
99 
one day a flea showed me the use of that solitary claw 
by biting my lemur in the ribs. Poor little beast ! I 
daresay he often had reason to be thankful that nature 
spared one toe when she promoted him to the order of 
four-handed mammals. 
I never had a more charming little pet than that 
lemur. He took life so gaily and his antics were so 
original. When I let him out of his cage in the 
morning, he would scamper straight into my bed- 
room and look round, his large eyes brimming over with 
a mild curiosity. As lightly as an india-rubber ball he 
would spring from the ground and alight upon my table. 
When he had examined everything there, feeling it with 
his fingers, he would bound across to my bed and run 
up the post and along the top bar. Another airy bound 
would land him on my shoulders, where he would sit and 
handle my ears gently, then wonder what was in that hole, 
and thrust in his long tongue to find out. This was too much 
for human endurance, so I would roll him up into a ball, 
wind his long, furry tail round him, and fling him into my 
bed ; but he unwound himself in a moment and skipped 
away to explore something new. His hind legs being 
longer than his forelegs, he walked slowly, with his head 
H 2 
