Monograph on the Aye-Aye (Chiromys madagascariensis, Cuvier).

  • Richard Owen
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Monograph on the Aye-Aye (Chiromys madagascariensis, Cuvier). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    astonishment, “ aye-aye ! ” on beholding the odd-looking quadruped, suggested the name which Sonnerat gave to it1. Buffon, after his close examination of the skin of the Aye-aye presented to the Royal Museum by Sonnerat, concludes that it is more closely allied to the genus of Squirrels than to any other, and that it also has some relation to the kind of Jerboa which he (Buffon) had called “Tarsier” in his 13th volume, 17692. This animal is now recognized as a Lemurine quadrumane. After describing the hind feet, Buffon remarks that “ the opposable character of the thumb, with the flattened nail, separates the species widely from the genus of Squirrels ; and that, of all the animals that have the flattened thumb, the ‘ Tarsier ’ is that which most resembles the Aye-aye3.” Buffon’s acute discern- ment of resemblances is thus well exemplified ; but as he believed the Tarsier to be a kind of Jerboa (it is the “ Woolly Jerboa ” of Pennant), it is plain that he ranked the Aye-aye with the Rodents. Gmelin, accordingly, entered the species as “ Sciurus madagascariensis ” in the 13th edition of the ‘ Systema Naturae,’ 1790. Cuvier, placing it under the same name at the end of the Squirrels, in his ‘ Tableau Elementaire de l’Histoire Naturelle ’ (Svo, 1798, p. 136), remarks, in reference to the opposable thumb on the foot, that “ it is, amongst the Rodents, what the Opossums are amongst the Carnassialsand he adds,—“ Sonnerat alleges that it subsists on the worms which it extracts from the hollows of trees and fissures of the bark by means of its slender digit4.” Sonnerat, however, speaks only of the burrows or holes (“ des trous des arbres ”) whence the Aye-aye extracts its larval food. Schreber, in whose system the limb-characters preponderated, placed the Aye-aye in the genus Lemur, as L. psilodactylus ; and Dr. Shaw adopted the name and the implied affinities5. De Blainville gave it a like position in his “ Prodrome d’une Nouvelle Distribution Systematique du R&gne Animal,” published in the ‘ Bulletin de la Societe Philomathique ’ (Paris, 1816), where the Aye-aye is placed amongst the “ Pithecoi'des,” or the group that follows the “ Singes ”6. In the meanwhile, however, Cuvier had availed himself of the means at his command 1 Op. cit. p. 124. Not the cry of the animal, as some writers have supposed. * “ II m’a paru se rapprocher du genre des Ecureuils plus que d’aucun autre; il a aussi quelque rapport a l’espece de Gerboise que j’ai donnee sous le nom de Tarsier, vol. xiii.” (Hist. Nat. Supplement, vol. vii. p. 269). 3 “ Ce caractere de doigt l’eloigne beaucoup du genre de l’Ecureuil. He tous les animaux qui ont le pouce aplati, le Tarsier est celui qui se rapproche le plus de 1’Aye-aye” (ib. p. 270). 4 “ Qu’il est parmi les Rongeurs ce que les pedimanes sont parmi les Carnassiers.” “ Sonnerat pretend qu’il vit des vers qu’il tire des creux des arbres et des fentes des ecorces, au moyen de son doigt plus grele ” (op. cit. p. 136). 5 “Long-fingered Lemur” (General Zoology, vol. i. parti, p. 109, pi. 34, 1800). 6 “ Pithe'coides, les Makis, les Loris, 1’Aye-aye,” p. 117. In a later work on the Aye-aye, published in 1841, as part of his ‘ Osteographie,’ M. de Blainville alludes to a memoir on the animal read by him to the Societe Philomathique in May 1816; but the ‘Bulletin’ for that year contains merely the reference above cited, and in a note the author states that want of space prevents his adding the explanatory remarks which his table of Mammifers needed.
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