| OCR Text |
Show 152 MR. ST. GEORGE MIVART ON MICRORHYNCHUS. [Mar. 13, In 1844 Professor Van der Hoeven published a representation of the external form and of the skull*. A woodcut of a skull in the Museum of Leyden (probably the same as that figured by Professor Van der Hoeven) appeared in Professor Vrolik's article on the " Quadrumana" in Todd's ' Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology' in 1852. M . Paul Gervais, in his ' Histoire Naturelle des Mammiferes,' 1854, pi. 7, has given a representation of the external form ; and another somewhat better one has appeared in Dr. Chenu's volume on Quadrumana in the Encyclopedic d'Histoire Naturelle, pi. 32. None of these, however, represent the animal quite satisfactorily, though by far the best is the figure given by Prof. Van der Hoeven. This very rare mammal is at present represented in the British Museum only by the skin of a young individual. In the Museum at Paris, according to M . Isid. G. St.-Hilairef, there were two adult males and one young male in 1851. In the Museum of Leyden there is a skin and a skull which afforded Prof. Van der Hoeven the opportunity of giving the description in the ' Tijdschrift voor Natuurlijke geschiedenis,' above referred to, where, at page 27, he saysX, "The woolly Maki, or, as it has often been called, the long-tailed Indri, had not been again seen since the voyage of Sonnerat, who discovered it. Gmelin had given it a place in the ' Systerna Naturae' under the name of Lemur laniger ; but the actual state of science required a more precise knowledge of the dentition in order to determine in which of the groups, into which zoologists had divided the genus Lemur, the animal should be placed. "M. Jourdan, Director of the Museum of Natural History at Lyons, •received, in 1833, a skin and a skull of this animal, of which he gave & description, which was read at a Seance of the Academie Royale des Sciences at Paris, but which was only made public by extracts published in the scientific journals. He believes it should constitute a new genus of the family of Lemurs, to which he gives the designation Avahi, that being the name given to the animal by the natives inhabiting the eastern part of Madagascar. " For a few years past there has been a skin and a skull in the Royal Museum of Leyden. " As regards the skull our figure § shows that it is short, and that the lower jaw is remarkable for its height. The form of this lower jaw recalls to mind, in certain respects, what one meets with in certain South-American Monkeys (of the genus Stentor) ; and the skull in general has some resemblance to that of the Daman, that anomalous genus of the Pachydermata to which Hermann has given the name Hyrax. " The animal has the hair curly or woolly, greyish brown on the baek, greyish yellow near,the tail; the belly is grey ; the posterior * Tijdschrift voor Natuurlijke geschiedenis, pi. 1. fig. 6, and pi. 3. t S,ee Catalogue des Primates, p. 69. | I a m indebted to the kindness of Mr. Smit for a French translation of the Dutch text. | Plate 1. fig. 6. |
