The animals are small in size, and a dried skin measures rather more than a foot and a half in length, from the muzzle to the root of the tail, and this latter appendage is thirteen inches long. The head is broad over the eyes, which are wide apart, and the muzzle barely projects, and the whole of the face is covered with short hairs of a reddish-brown tint. There is a distinct band of whitish fur placed across the top of the forehead, and which has fur before and behind it of a darker colour than the rest of the hair of the body. This band is curved, and forms a point which projects forward in the middle line of the forehead. The fur on the back and flanks of the body is of a dark grey colour close to the skin, but on its surface the colour is brown more or less rusty. This is the tint on the extremities, the grey colour underlying. On the backs of the thighs there are white patches, and at those spots there is no deep-seated grey tint. The cylindrical tail is reddish-brown, like the hands and feet. The ears are short and rounded, and are generally hairy, but not tufted, and they are hidden in the fur of the head. The nostrils are separated by a narrow septum. The feet are short and broad, and the claw of the toe is long and cylindrical.
Although the muzzle is so short, the teeth are set so as to be in a long row on each side, for the front cutting teeth are not placed side by side, but in front of each other, and there is a strange gap between the inner ones in the upper jaw. Then the canine teeth, seen, of course, only in the upper jaw, are very broad, and the next teeth to them (the first pre-molars) are as large as they are. This is a marked peculiarity, and there is no other creature except man that has these teeth so closely resembling each other. To complete the notice of this little highly-constructed Indris it is necessary to remark that its wrist-bones resemble in their number and place those of man and the higher Apes. The Gibbons and all the other Monkeys have an extra bone to the wrist, called the intermedium, and this is present in the Indris already noticed, but it is absent in this Avahi, and in the next kind about to be described.
The next species to be noticed was never included in the so-called genus Propithecus, as it has only a short stump of a tail, but has always been taken as the special illustration of the group Indris.
THE SHORT-TAILED INDRIS.[118]
This species can be distinguished from all others by its stump-like tail. It has a long muzzle, visible hairy ears, and generally speaking the fur is black; it is marked, however, with white hairs on the fore-arms, back, and hinder quarters. As regards the teeth, there is some variability in the size of the upper incisors in different individuals, and the front pair may be smaller or larger than the hind pair. The inhabitants of Madagascar call it the Babakoto (baba means “father,” and koto, “boy”). This Indris, which attains the height of three feet, is found in the interior of the east of Madagascar; and when Vinson travelled through one of the great forests in that part of the island, he was constantly annoyed by the incessant noise made by numerous bands of them, which kept themselves, however, out of sight, and hidden in the dense foliage. The natives consider the Babakoto sacred, and believe that the trees on which they live yield leaves which will cure all diseases. Moreover, they tell some astonishing stories about these objects of their veneration. They say that it is dangerous to cast a spear at one of them, for, if it misses its mark, the animal returns the weapon with a surer aim! They also assert that after a little one is born, the mother throws it to the father, who is usually up a tree close by, and he throws it back again! This exercise is repeated several times; and if the young one is invariably caught it is reared with care, but if it tumbles, there is an end of it. They train the Babakoto to catch birds; and it is said that they become as useful as Dogs; moreover, it appears that, although these Indris are in the main fruit-eaters, they will not despise the brains of birds, which they suck with evident delight.
The skull of an Indris has large orbits, which are open behind into the space in which the temporal muscle works, and the “tear-canal” is in front of the orbit; moreover, the forehead, or frontal bone, is divided. The lower jaw has its angle, or the part between that which holds the teeth and that which rises up to be jointed with the skull, turned in, and the upper jaw in front is joined by the intermaxillary bones.
GENUS LEPILEMUR.
An animal which has no upper front teeth is certainly a curiosity, especially when its general state and habits resemble those of the other Indris and Lemuroids, and the Lepilemur is such a one. It is found in Madagascar, and it is interesting on account of the variable nature of the colour of the fur in different individuals, as well as from the nature of its teeth and its habits. It differs, however, so much from all the other Lemuroida, that it is placed by itself in a genus, and the distinctions are that when fully grown it has no upper front teeth, although it has them in the first, or milk set, and that it has also four teats for its young instead of two, as is the case in all the animals hitherto noticed. The name refers to its prettiness, and hence the genus is called Lepilemur.
This creature, considering its size, has an immense tail, as it is ten inches long, the head and trunk measuring only fourteen, and the whole animal forms a nice little meal for the natives of the north-west of the island. They call it Fitili-Ki, and as it eats the buds and leaves of trees it has a good flavour as a meat; hence it is sought after, but not hunted, for that is unnecessary. Knowing its habits the natives watch it, and, when it has left off playing and scampering about with its fellows (for it is very sociable), notice where it retires as daylight appears. There they find their prey quietly asleep, curled up in a comfortable nest of leaves, and they kill it with a stick. Hunting them would be useless, for they are quite nocturnal in their habits, and their activity in moving, and agility in taking prodigious bounds and jumps, are wonderful. Indeed, their body seems to be carefully made as strong as possible to meet the strains of their jumping, and there is a ridge of bone in the bodies of some of the vertebræ which strengthens the spine as a whole; moreover, the relation of the length of the ankle-bones and of the lower leg is that which is best adapted to their heedless rushings from branch to branch through the woods. Their nightly excursions for fruit and play are rendered all the more safe by their great eyes and widely open orbits, but how the eating the fruit is assisted by the want of the upper front teeth may probably puzzle most people. Perhaps the diet may require a greater use than is usual of the back teeth, and the lower ones are peculiar, for their front part is carried forward outside the next tooth before them in the jaw, giving thus much extra strength to the whole. This Weasel Lemur, or Lepilemur mustelinus, has fair-sized ears, and its colours are of all sorts of shades of red, grey, white, and yellow.
These animals hide their little ones, which do not get about much at first, in nests made in the holes in trees.