12 
ON THE LEMURIDai:. 
do not know the specimen from ‘which he has taken his figures and descrip-- 
tion; but the Potto of Bosman; {Perodicticus Geoffroyi^ Behnett ; Lemur Potto^ 
Gmel. ; Nycticebus Potto, Geoefr. ) has only four incisors above; and the 
reciprocal position of the canines is as in the Lemur.—See Zool. Proceed, for 
1831, p: 109.—The specimen of Perodicticus Geoffroyi is in the Mus; ZooL 
Soc., and, being preserved in spirits, its dentition is easily examined. 
Confining ourselves still to Madagascar, a new genus now demands our 
notice;—-it is that termed by Geoffroy, from a hand, and 
or EaAr/j, a Cat. This genus was first established on three drawings by 
CoMMERSON, in a paper in the Annates du Museum, Vol. 19, p 171. Geoff. 
St. Hilaire there observes, that the animals made known by these drawings 
have, like Cats, the head round, the nose and muzzle short, the lips furnished 
with whiskers, the eyes large, projecting, and set near together, and the ears 
short and oval. Their tail is long, bushy, regularly cylindrical, naturally 
folded, or rolled sometimes on itself, sometimes around the body.^^—In con¬ 
junction with these traits, the general characters are those^ of the Lemuridoe. 
Notwithstanding the authority of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and the drawing of 
CoMMERSON, noted for his great accuracy, the genus Cheirogaleus long remained 
doubtful. Recently, however, an animal belonging to this group has been 
brought alive to Paris^ from Madagascar, by Admiral Milius, which, as Geof¬ 
froy says, justifies him in the establishment of the genus upon the few data left 
by Commerson. —It would seem that the animals of this group were not un¬ 
known to Flaccourt, who observes, that he noticed in the neighbourhood of 
Mangobay a kind of Lemur of small size, grey, and with a very blunt muzzle. 
Compared with the Lemurs, the species of Cheirogaleus are of a stouter and shorter 
colour; the general outline of form is the same,but it is as if the long slender figure 
of the Lemurs was contracted and gathered up together; the head is large, the 
eye open, the upper lips are thick, and cover those beneath; so that it seems as if 
these animals, Lemurs in truth, had borrowed some traits from the feline group. 
Of the species ascribed to this genus, three rest on the authority of Com¬ 
merson. These are the Ch: major, II inches in length; the Ch. medius, 8^ 
inches long ; and the Ch : minor, 7 inches long. The individual brought home 
by Admiral Milius, forms, according to Geoffroy, a fourth species. This 
animal is described and figured by F. Cuvier, under the name of Maki-nain, 
to which he has given the name of Ch : Milii. It is upwards of a foot in 
length; greyish rufous above, greyish white beneath; a circle of white sur¬ 
rounds the eyes; the muzzle is naked and blackish. In habits, these animals 
are decidedly nocturnal; and their activity is surprising. The specimen at 
Paris is described as traversing its cage, as if on wings, and taking perpendicu¬ 
lar leaps of five or six feet in height. 
