THE LEMURS by Christian Work

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 8, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 48.

THE LEMURS.

By Christian Work

IN Africa and the Asiatic Archipelago these rare fourfooted animals that live in the solitary forests are for the most part creatures of the night. Unlike the lively squirrels and martin cats of temperate regions, they do not leave their hiding places till the tropical darkness has fallen on the forest, when they seek their food, not on the surface of the ground, but, imitating the birds, ascend to the upper surface of the ocean of trees, and at the first approach of dawn seek refuge from the hateful day in the dark recesses of some aged and hollow trunk.

There is nothing like the loris or the lemur in the fauna of temperate Europe. We may rather compare them to a race of aboreal moles, the condition of whose life is darkness and invisibility. But, unlike the moles, the smaller members of these rarely seen tribes are among the most beautiful and interesting creatures of the tropics, though the extreme difficulty of capturing creatures whose whole life is spent on the loftiest forest trees is further increased by the reluctance of the natives to enter the deserted and pathless forests.

The beautiful lemurs, most of whom are found in Madagascar, are further believed by the Malagasy to embody the spirits of their ancestors, and the weird and plaintive cries with which they fill the groves at night, uttered by creatures whose bodies, as they cling to the branches, are invisible, and whose delicate movements are noiseless, may well have left a doubt on the minds of the first discoverers of the island as to whether these were not in truth the cries and wailings of true lemures, the unquiet ghosts of the departed.—