ON THE LEMURIDiE. 
IS9 
If this be the case, and if it is in our power, by adopting the proper means, to 
preserve the King of the Forest in all his pristine grandeur and majesty, why 
should there be that apathy which exists on a subject, the importance of which is 
by no one disputed. Let, then, those in whose power the remedy exists, exert 
themselves in securing, for the ages yet to come, those blessings which our cli¬ 
mate is calculated to produce, and does produce, and which we are now possess¬ 
ing and enjoying; by so doing they will receive their rich reward, in that satis¬ 
faction which must invariably follow from the consciousness of being employed 
in the benefit of our fellow-creatures—^a benefit of the highest kind— 
^ For he who guards the state, and he who plants 
The woodland screen, anticipates alike 
The grateful meed, a future age’s love.”— Tighe. 
Preateiffn, Jan. 1, 1837. 
ON THE LEMURID^, OR FAMILY OP LEMURS. 
(Continued from p. 13.) 
The genus Mzcrocebus, Geoff., contains, as far as we know at prkent, 
two distinct species, which, as we shall explain, have not only been con¬ 
founded with each other, but have also been referred, even by modern 
naturalists, to genera from which they differ in many essential particulars. 
Geoffboy St. Hilaire (vide Annales du MuseCf tom. 19, 1796) the two 
species being undistinguished, places the Rat de Madagascar of Buffon, 
which he regarded as identical with the Little Macauco of Brown and Pennant, 
in the genus Galago. Subsequently, however, in his Corns de rHistoire Na- 
turelle^ 1834, Geoffroy established the genus Microcehus^ of which the Rat d'e 
Madagascar served him for the type. In the last edition of Cuvier’s Regne Ani¬ 
mal, we also find (see foot-note, page 109) the Little Macauco of Brown regarded 
as a Galago, as weU as the animal described by G. Fischer (in Act. de la Sbc. 
de Mosc. I. p. 24, f. 1.), under the name of Galago Demidoffii. We have pre¬ 
viously hinted our suspicions that the Ckeirogaleus Milii will be found to belong 
to the genus Microcebus, but as we have never seen the specimens from which 
Geoffroy St. Hilaire took his description, we cannot positively determine. 
With regard to the characters upon which the genus Microcebus is founded, it 
may be observed, that they approximate more closely to those of the true Lemurs, 
than do those of the genus Galago. In the latter genus, for instance, the ears 
are extremely large, membranous, and capable of being folded down; and the 
posterior extremities are remarkably developed. The Galagos, moreover, appear 
to be exclusively confined to Continental Africa, while the Mkrocebi are restricted 
(with the true Lemurs) to Madagascar. 
2c 2 
