s friend."

THE AYE-AYE (_Chiromys Madagascariensis_).

Zoologists used to know a very curious animal from Madagascar, by name,
or by an indifferent specimen preserved in the Paris Museum. Sonnerat,
the naturalist, obtained it from that great island so well known to
geographical boys in former days by its being, so they were told, the
largest island in the world. This strange quadruped was named by a word
which meant "handed-mouse," for such is the signification of _chiromys_,
or _cheiromys_, as it used to be spelled. This creature, when its
history was better known, was believed to be not far removed in the
system from the lemurs and loris. Its soft fur, long tail, large eyes,
and other features and habits connected it with these quadrumana, while
its rodent dentition seemed to refer it to the group containing our
squirrels, hares, and mice. It has been the subject of a profound memoir
by Professor Owen, our greatest comparative anatomist; and I remember,
with pleasure, the last time I saw him at the Museum he was engaged in
its dissection. I may here refer to one of the Professor's lighter
productions--a lecture at Exeter Hall on some instances of the "power of
God as manifested in His animal creation"--for a very nice notice of
this curious quadruped. In one of the French journals, there was an
excellent account given of the peculiar habits of the little nocturnal
creature. In those tropical countries the trees are tenanted by
countless varieties of created things. Their wood affords rich feeding
to the large, fat, pulpy grubs of beetles of the families _Buprestidae_,
_Dynastidae_, _Passalidae_, and, above all, that glorious group the
_Longicornia_. These beetles worm their way into the wood, making often
long tunnels, feeding as they work, and leaving their _ejecta_ in the
shape of agglomerated sawdust. It is into the long holes drilled by
these beetles that the Aye-Aye searches with his long fingers, one of
which, on the fore-hand, is specially thin, slender, and skeleton-like.
It looks like the tool of some lock-picker. Our large-eyed little
friend, like the burglar, comes out at night and finds these holes on
the trees where he slept during the day. His sensitive thin ears, made
to hear every scratch, can detect the rasping of the retired grub,
feasting in apparent security below. Naturalists sometimes hear at
night, so Samouelle once told me, the grubs of moths munching the dewy
leaves. Our aye-aye is no coll