The Aye Aye is about the size of a large cat, and its face is full, wide, and rather destitute of hair. The upper part of the face is dull flesh-colour, which changes to pink upon the muzzle. The general colour is dull black, the hair being very long, rather scanty, and decidedly coarse. Upon the back many of the hairs become quite white towards the extremities, and have a very fine effect when contrasted with the sober black of the general fur. The tail is deep black and large, like that of a fox, but the hairs are arranged in a different manner, as may be seen from the illustration. Whenever the animal is angry, and spreads its tail, the hairs are seen to be grey at the base, and black as they approach the tips.
The ears are very large, black, and nearly hairless, but studded with little knobs; and the eyes are very large, very full, and of a beautiful chestnut colour. The fingers are very long and slender, and are held in a curious kind of clutching attitude, as is shown in the illustration. When the face is seen directly in front, two of the teeth gleam whitely between the lips, and if the animal should chance to yawn their formidable arrangement becomes visible, and it is easy to see how deeply they can bite into the tree.
The keeper seems to be on very good terms with the animal, which he calls “Jack” in bold defiance of her sex.
It is possible that we may obtain a male specimen of the Aye Aye, and that they may breed in this country, as has been the case with many rare animals, inhabitants of hotter climes. There is, however, a considerable difficulty in obtaining specimens, even when we know where to look for them; for the Aye Aye can only be detected by the watchful eye of the native, who has from his childhood been taught to reverence the Aye Aye as something supernatural, and to fancy that, if he should touch one of these animals, even by chance, he will die within a year. There are but few natives who are strong-minded enough to put themselves in such danger, and even those who are daring enough to seize an Aye Aye require to have their courage stimulated by a very large bribe—enough, in fact, to maintain them through the entire year of peril.
I have written at some length of this wonderful animal, because it is the first living specimen which has ever touched the European shores, and no one can say how long it will live. There are, however, many curious and interesting details of its structure which I cannot mention for lack of space. If the reader should desire to make himself master of the anatomy of the Aye Aye, he will find a vast fund of information in Professor Owen’s monograph upon this creature.
ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF THE AYE AYE.
“Aye Aye!” So exclaimed the natives of the east coast of Madagascar, when first shown the little animal described above. But the exclamation was not of affirmation, but astonishment; for they had never seen it before, and indeed there are reasons for thinking it is confined to the other side of that great continental island, which is so little known, yet in which Christianity has long numbered its devotees, its martyrs, and its apostates.
“But,” says some reader, whose tastes lead him to politics, poetry, or fiction, rather than to Nature, and whose acquaintance with the latter is limited to the creatures which he may eat or be eaten by—“even if I did care to know anything at all about this little beast, with the head of a cat, the tail of a squirrel, the hands of a miser, and the feet of a monkey, all I have to do is to glance at my Beeton’s Dictionary, and find in a nutshell all about the Aye Aye.”
But there is more to be said about the Aye Aye than can be contained in a scientific dictionary, and as to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, we pray our readers to listen for a single moment to the following statement, which is made with great regret, since we too once had equal faith in the magnificent work above mentioned. The figure named Aye Aye, upon page 99, would answer equally well for at least a dozen other mammiferous vertebrates, and no one who has ever seen a correct picture of the Aye Aye would recognise this as meant for one; the description of its appearance and habits, though equal in length to that of the elephant, is incorrect in several important points, and neither the figure nor the description affords any information respecting the real peculiarities which distinguish the Aye Aye from all known animals. It is true that similar defects exist in the account given in Wood’s Illustrated Natural History of Mammalia; and there is some excuse for this as in the dictionary, since both were issued before the appearance of Professor Owen’s splendid Monograph of the Aye Aye, in 1866; but neither this nor any other excuse can be urged for the deficiencies and misstatements of certain late text-books of zoology.
We trust this is sufficient reason for offering now some further account of the Aye Aye.