Fig. 262.—Slow Loris. Nycticebus tardigradus. × ⅓.
The animal has a wide distribution in the East, occurring in Assam and Burmah, the Malay Peninsula, Siam, and Cochin-China, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and the Philippines. Its vernacular names signify "Bashful Cat" and "Bashful Monkey" in allusion to its nocturnal and shy habits. It lives among trees, which it does not voluntarily leave. Its movements are deliberate, as its popular name, Slow Loris, implies; but it makes up for this by a vigorous tenacity of grasp. The animals "make a curious chattering when angry, and when pleased at night they utter a short though tuneful whistle of one unvaried note, which is thought by Chinese sailors to presage wind." Much superstition has collected round this harmless though rather weird-looking creature. Its influence over human beings is as active when it is dead as when it is alive. "Thus," writes Mr. Stanley Flower,[[407]] "a Malay may commit a crime he did not premeditate, and then find that an enemy had buried a particular part of a loris under his threshold, which had, unknown to him, compelled him to act to his own disadvantage." The life of the Loris, adds Mr. Flower,
"is not a happy one, for it is continually seeing ghosts; and that is why it hides its face in its hands!"
The genus Perodicticus contains two quite recognisable species, known respectively as the Angwantibo and Bosman's Potto. The former has been regarded as referable to a distinct genus, Arctocebus. A curious internal character of the Potto which is visible, or at least can be felt, externally, is the long neural processes of the cervical vertebrae, which project beyond the level of the skin. The index finger is rudimentary and so is the tail, being only just visible (about an inch in length) in the Potto. The colour of both genera is a reddish grey, redder in the Potto. The incisors are equal and minute. Both species are confined in their range to West Africa, and are arboreal like the other members of the sub-family. The Potto seems to share the leisurely mode of progression of its Asiatic relatives, if Bosman, its original describer, is to be trusted. He says: "By the negroes called Potto, but known to us by the name of Sluggard, doubtless from its lazy, sluggish nature; a whole day being little enough for it to advance ten steps forward." The same writer did not at all appreciate his addition to zoological knowledge, for he remarked that the Potto "hath nothing very particular but his odious ugliness." The Angwantibo is rare and but little known. Our knowledge of its anatomy is derived from a paper by Huxley.[[408]] It is an animal measuring about 10½ inches in total length to the end of the tail, which is only a quarter of an inch long. The hands and feet are smaller than those of Perodicticus. The index finger is rudimentary and has but two phalanges, and it has no trace of a nail. In this it agrees with the Potto, but "the spinous processes of the cervical vertebrae do not project in the manner described by van der Hoeven in the Potto, though they can be readily felt through the skin." The dental formula of this genus as of the last is I 2/2 C 1/1 Pm 3/3 M 3/3. The last lower molar has a fifth cusp, which is wanting in the Potto. The last upper molar is tricuspid. It is bicuspid in the Potto. It seems impossible to avoid agreeing with Professor Huxley that the Angwantibo is entitled to generic separation.
The genus Loris also contains but a single species, L. gracilis, and is, as its name denotes, an animal of more slender build than the Slow Loris. Its eyes are very large, and the limbs excessively
slender. The index finger is much as in Nycticebus. The colour, too, is not widely different, being of a yellowish grey, but it lacks the dorsal stripe which distinguishes its relative. The incisor teeth are equal and very small. The last upper molar has four cusps instead of the three of Nycticebus. This Lemur is confined to Southern India and Ceylon, and has much the same habits as the last. But it is rather more active, and can capture small birds when sleeping upon the trees; its diet, however, is mixed, and is vegetarian as well as animal.
A mysterious Lemur, which we conveniently place as a kind of appendix to the present family on account of its locality, has been shortly described by Nachtrieb from the Philippines. The tail is rudimentary; there are two upper incisors, but as many as six lower. It is doubtful what the beast really is.
