ON THE

LORIS, OR SLOW-PACED LEMUR.

BY THE PRESIDENT.

THE singular animal, which most of

you saw alive, and of which I now lay before you a perfectly' accurate figure, has been very correctly described by Linnæus; except that sich led would have been a juster epithet than awled for the bent claws on its hinder indices; and that the size of a squirrel seems an improper, because a variable measure: its configuration and colours are particularized also with great accuracy by M. Daubenton; but the short account of the Loris, by M. De Buffon, appears unsatisfactory, and his engraved representation of it has little resemblance to nature; so little that, when I was endeavouring to find in his work a description of the quadrumane which had just been sent me from Dacca, passed over the chapter on the Loris, and ascertained it merely by seeing in a note the Linnæan character of the slow-paced Lemur. The illustrious French naturalist, whom, even when we criticise a few parts of his noble work, we cannot but name with admiration, observes of the Loris, that, from the proportion of its body and limbs, one would not suppose it slow in walking or leaping; and intimates an opinion, that Seba gave this animal the epithet of slow-moving, from some fancied likeness to the Sloth of America: but, though its body be remarkably long in proportion to the breadth

of it, and the hinder legs, or more properly arms, much longer than those before, yet the Loris, in fact, walks, or climbs, very slowly, and is, probably, unable to leap. Neither its genus nor species, we find, are new yet, as its temper and instincts are undescribed, and as the Natural History by M. De Buffon, or The System of Nature by Linnæus, cannot always be readily procured, I have set down a few remarks on the form, the manners, the name, and the country of my little favourite, who engaged my affection while he lived, and whose memory I wish to perpetuate.

I. This male animal had four hands, each fivefingered; palms naked; nails round, except those of the indices behind, which were long, curved, pointed; hair very thick, especially on the haunches, extremely soft, mostly dark grey, varied above with brown and a tinge of russet; darker on the back, paler about the face and under the throat, reddish towards the rump; no tail, a dorsal stripe, broad, chesnut coloured, narrower towards the neck; a head almost spherical; a countenance expressive and interesting; eyes round, large, approximated, weak in the day-time, glowing and animated at night; a white vertical stripe between them; eye-lashes black, short; ears dark, rounded, concave; great acuteness at night, both in seeing and hearing; a face hairy, flattish; a nose pointed, not much elongated; the upper lip cleft; canine-teeth, comparatively long, very sharp.

More than this I could not observe on the living animal; and he died at a season when I could neither attend a dissection of his body, nor with propriety request any of my medical friends to perform such an operation during the heats of August; but I opened his jaw and counted only two incisors above,

and as many below, which might have been a defect in the individual; and it is mentioned simply as a fact, without any intention to censure the generic ars rangement of Linnæus.

II. In his manners he was for the most part gentle, except in the cold season, when his temper seemed wholly changed; and his Creator, who made him so sensible of cold, to which he must often have been exposed even in his native forests, gave him, 'probably for that reason, his thick fur, which we rarely see on animals in these tropical climates. To me, who not only constantly fed him, but bathed him twice a week in water accommodated to the seasons, and whom he clearly distinguished from others, he was at all times grateful; but, when I disturbed him in winter, he was usually indignant, and seemed to reproach me with the uneasiness which he felt, though no possible precautions had been omitted to keep him in a proper degree of warmth. At all times he was pleased with being stroked on the head and throat, and frequently suffered me to touch his extremely sharp teeth; but at all times his temper was quick, and when he was unseasonably disturbed, he expressed a little resentment by an obscure murmur, like that of a squirrel, or a greater degree of displeasure by a peevish cry, especially in winter, when he was often as fierce, on being much importuned, as any beast of the woods. From half an hour after sunrise to half an hour before sunset, he slept without intermission, rolled up like a hedge-hog; and as soon as he awoke, he began to prepare himself for the labours of his approaching day, licking and dressing himself like a cat; an operation which the flexibility of his neck and limbs enabled him to perform very completely; he was then ready for a slight breakfast, after which he commonly took a short nap; but when the sun was quite set, he recovered all his vivacity. His ordinary food was the VOL. IV. K

sweet fruit of his country: plantains always, and mangos during the season; but he refused peaches, and was not fond of mulberries, or even of guaiavas; milk he lapped eagerly, but was contented with plain water. In general, he was not voracious, but never appeared satiated with grasshoppers; and passed the whole night, while the hot season lasted, in prowling for them. When a grasshopper, or any insect, alighted within his reach, his eyes, which he fixed on his prey, glowed with uncommon fire; and, having drawn himself back to spring on it with greater force, he seized the victim with both his fore-paws, but held it in one of them while he devoured it. For other purposes, and sometimes even for that of holding his food, he used all his paws indifferently as hands, and frequently grasped with one of them the higher part of his ample cage, while his three others were severally engaged at the bottom of it; but the posture of which he seemed fondest, was to cling with all four of them to the upper wires, his body being inverted; and in the evening he usually stood erect for many minutes playing on the wires with his fingers, and rapidly moving his body from side to side, as if he had found the utility of exercise in his unnatural state of confinement. A little before day-break, when my early hours gave me frequent opportunities of observing him, he seemed to solicit my attention; and if I presented my finger to him, he licked or nibbled it with great gentleness, but eagerly took fruit when I offered it; though he seldom eat much at his morning repast. When the day brought back his night, his eyes lost their lustre and strength, and he composed himself for a slumber of ten or eleven hours.

III. The names Loris and Lemur will, no doubt, be continued by the respective disciples of Buffon and Linnæus; nor can I suggest any other, since the Pandits know little or nothing of the animal. The

lower Hindus of this province generally call it Lajjá bánar, or the Bashful Ape; and the Mussulmans, retaining the sense of the epithet, give it the absurd appellation of a Cat; but it is neither a cat nor bashful; for though a Pandit, who saw my Lemur by day-light, remarked that he was Lajjalu, or modest (a word which the Hindus apply to all sensitive plants) yet he only seemed bashful, while in fact he was dimsighted and drowsy; for at night, as you perceive by his figure, he had open eyes, and as much boldness as any of the Lemures, poetical or Linnæan.

IV. As to his country, the first of the species that I saw in India was in the district of Tipra, properly Tripura, whither it had been brought, like mine, from the Garrow mountains; and Dr. Anderson informs me, that it is found in the woods on the coast of Coromandel. Another had been sent to a member of our Society from one of the eastern isles; and though the Loris may be also a native of Silán, yet I cannot agree with M. De Buffon, that it is the minute, sociable, and docile animal mentioned by Thevenot, which it resembles neither in size nor in disposition.

My little friend was, on the whole, very engaging; and when he was found lifeless, in the same posture in which he would naturally have slept, I consoled myself with believing that he had died without pain, and lived with as much pleasure as he could have enjoyed in a state of captivity.