[Read April 7th, 1859.]

"Mauritius, Jan. 27, 1859.

"My dear Mr. Owen,—After very great difficulty and much delay, I have at length obtained a fine healthy male adult Aye-Aye; and he is now enjoying himself in a large cage which I have had constructed for him.

He is a most interesting little animal; and from close observation I have learnt his habits very correctly. On receiving him from Madagascar, I was told that he ate bananas; so of course I fed him on them, but tried him with other fruit. I found he liked dates,—which was a grand discovery, supposing he be sent alive to England. Still I thought that those strong rodent teeth, as large as those of a young Beaver, must have been intended for some other purpose than that of trying to eat his way out of a cage—the only use he seemed to make of them, besides masticating soft fruits. Moreover, he had other peculiarities,—e.g., singularly large, naked ears directed forward, as if for offensive rather than defensive purposes; then, again, the second finger of the hands is unlike anything but a monster supernumerary member, it being slender and long, half the thickness of the other fingers, and resembling a piece of bent wire. Excepting the head and this finger, he closely resembles a Lemur.

Now as he attacked, every night, the woodwork of his cage, which I was gradually lining with tin, I bethought myself of tying some sticks over the woodwork, so that he might gnaw these instead. I had previously put in some large branches for him to climb upon; but the others were straight sticks to cover over the woodwork of his cage, which alone he attacked. It so happened that the thick sticks I now put into his cage were bored in all directions by a large and destructive grub called here the Moutouk. Just at sunset the Aye-Aye crept from under his blanket, yawned, stretched, and betook himself to his tree, where his movements are lively and graceful, though by no means so quick as those of a squirrel. Presently he came to one of the worm-eaten branches, which he began to examine most attentively; and bending forward his ears, and applying his nose close to the bark, he rapidly tapped the surface with the curious second digit, as a woodpecker taps a tree, though with much less noise, from time to time inserting the end of the slender finger into the worm-holes, as a surgeon would a probe. At length he came to a part of the branch which evidently gave out an interesting sound, for he began to tear it with his strong teeth. He rapidly stripped off the bark, cut into the wood, and exposed the nest of a grub, which he daintily picked out of its bed with the slender tapping finger, and conveyed the luscious morsel to his mouth.

I watched these proceedings with intense interest, and was much struck with the marvellous adaptation of the creature to its habits, shown by his acute hearing, which enables him aptly to distinguish the different tones emitted from the wood by his gentle tapping; his evidently acute sense of smell, aiding him in his search; his secure footsteps on the slender branches, to which he firmly clung by his quadrumanous members; his strong rodent teeth, enabling him to tear through the wood; and lastly by the curious slender finger, unlike that of any other animal, and which he used alternately as a pleximeter, a probe, and a scoop.

But I was yet to learn another peculiarity. I gave him water to drink in a saucer, on which he stretched out a hand, dipped a finger into it, and drew it obliquely through his open mouth; and this he repeated so rapidly, that the water seemed to flow into his mouth. After a while he lapped like a cat; but his first mode of drinking appeared to me to be his way of reaching water in the deep clefts of trees.

I am told that the Aye-Aye is an object of veneration at Madagascar, and that if any native touches one, he is sure to die within the year; hence the difficulty of obtaining a specimen. I overcame this scruple by a reward of £10.

I quite despair of obtaining the bones of the Dinornis or Dodo, though I have made every effort. I shall always be proud to be of service.

Believe me, yours very faithfully,