burrow of the insect, most probably the soft larva of some beetle, and then comes into play the extraordinary long wire-like finger, which enters the small cylindrical burrow, and with the sharp bent claw hooks out the grub. Here we have a most complex adaptation of different parts and organs, all converging to one special end, that end being the same as is reached by a group of birds, the woodpeckers, in a different way; and it is a most interesting fact that, although woodpeckers abound in all the great continents, and are especially common in the tropical forests of Asia, Africa, and America, they are quite absent from Madagascar. We may, therefore, consider that the aye-aye really occupies the same place in nature in the forests of this tropical island, as do the woodpeckers in other parts of the world. DISTRIBUTION, AFFINITIES, AND ZOOLOGICAL RANK OF MONKEYS. Having thus sketched an outline of the monkey tribe as regards their more prominent external characters and habits, we must say a few words on their general relations as a distinct order of mammalia. No other group so extensive and so varied as this, is so exclusively tropical in its distribution, a circumstance no doubt due to the fact that monkeys depend so largely on fruit and insects for their subsistence. A very few species extend into the warmer parts of the temperate zones, their extreme limits in the northern hemisphere being Gibraltar, the Western Himalayas at 11,000 feet elevation, East Thibet, and Japan. In America they are found in Mexico, but do not appear to pass beyond the tropic. In the Southern hemisphere they are limited by the extent of the forests in South Brazil, which reach about 30° south latitude. In the East, owing to their entire absence from Australia, they do not reach the tropic; but in Africa, some baboons range to the southern extremity of the continent.