SOLE OF FOOT, WITH LONG
HEEL, OF GARNETT’S GALAGO.
(Original after Murie.)
“It has one failing—otherwise its capture were no easy task. Should a pot of palm-wine be left on the tree, the creature drinks to excess, comes down, and rushes about intoxicated. In captivity they are wild; during the day remaining either rolled up in a ball, or perched half asleep, with ears stowed away like a Beetle’s wing under its hard and ornamented case (elytra). I had half a dozen Squirrels with one in the same cage; these were good friends, the latter creeping under the ‘Golgo’s’ soft fur and falling asleep. On introducing a few specimens of Shrew (Macroscelides tetradactylus), the ‘Golgo’ seized one and bit off its tail, which, however, it did not eat. The food it took was biscuit, rice, orange, banana, guava, and a little cooked meat. Stupid during the day, it became active at night, or just after darkness set in.
“The rapidity and length of its leaps, which were absolutely noiseless, must give great facilities to its capturing live prey. I never knew it give a loud call, but it would often make a low chattering noise. It has been observed at the Luabo mouth of the Zambesi, at Quilimane, and at Mozambique. When I had my live specimen at Zanzibar, the natives there did not seem to recognise it; nevertheless, it may be abundant on the mainland.”
POTTO IN ITS SLEEPING AND WAKING ATTITUDES. (Modified from Alph. Milne-Edwards.)
Mr. Monteiro tells us that the Loanda specimens have not the character of being such a drunken lot of creatures, though they are arrant thieves, but otherwise he corroborates Kirk’s observations. He mentions that they come in bands, and rob the fruit-trees of the villages. Their flesh is looked upon as good eating, and their skins are eagerly sought for, the fur being used to staunch wounds. In allusion to the Galago’s inebriety, Dr. Gray relates that a friend of his gave a half-grown Scotch Terrier to a distiller, who soon returned it with the character of “habit and repute.” The animal could not by any correction be prevented from drinking the spirit as it came from the still, or any spirits it could get, and it would stagger and reel about, verifying the term, “a drunken dog,” so often applied to divine man.
THE AFRICAN SLOW LEMURS.
The rest of the African Lemuroids have not the habits, appearance, and anatomy of the Galagos, and are a very sad, weird, slow-going set, totally different from the active, careless kinds already noticed. A world of care seems to hang around their deliberate movements; they are images of Sleepy Hollow; they never are seen to spring and rush about, but ordinarily conduct themselves with great gravity and decorum. Slow they are, and hence their name the Slow Loris, and their body and limbs are not made for rapid locomotion. The limbs are nearly equal in length, their head is globular, and the eyes are uneven. The short ears and short fur are all of a piece, and so is the short tail (for this is most common), and the short second or index (counting the thumb as one) finger. The back or rib vertebræ are fourteen or more, and the loin-bones are never less than seven. There is a remarkable division of the blood-vessels of the arms, loins, and legs called the rete mirabile. The vessels split into minute tubes, like hairs in calibre, but of two sizes, and lie closely adherent to each other in long parallel lines (see [page 245]); this arrangement, also termed a plexus, or plexiform, being similar in kind to what is met with in the Sloth tribe of South America. The Slow Lemurs inhabit both Africa and Asia, but are not found in Madagascar, and their mode of life is strictly arboreal and nocturnal.