Yet the monkeys do not stand alone in this grasping power, for we have seen that the opossums have hind-thumbs among the pouch-bearers, while among the rodents the little dormouse has a nailless grasping toe-thumb on his hind feet. So that here already we have some clue to possible descendants of poor relations of the monkeys down in the lower forms of life; and when we remember that the colugo (see p. 232) is related on the one hand to marsupials and insect-eaters, while on the other it leans towards the lemurs, and through them to the monkeys, we begin to suspect that somewhere low down in all these groups we might find ourselves among a family party from which all the different branches have sprung; just as we found the birds, reptiles, and milk-givers starting in past ages among the amphibia. It must, however, be very long ago since the monkeys scrambled to the top of this family tree, for even the Lemurs,--which are not true monkeys, but a lower type with an irregular number of teeth like the insect-eaters, hairy hands and fox-like faces, without any change of expression,--have well-developed thumbs and toe-thumbs, with nails on hands and feet, and they have besides that free movement of the arm and wrist which gives at once an advantage to the _Quadrumana_[152] or four-handed animals. These lemurs are a gentle and loving race of creatures, which run on all fours like cats, and have none of the mischievous half-reasoning pranks of monkeys. They must have crept down long long ago from the great battlefield of Europe and Asia, and taken refuge in the forests of South Africa and India, and especially in the Island of Madagascar, where they were sheltered from the attacks of larger and fiercer animals. They are splendid climbers, with very sensitive tips to their fingers, which are often of different lengths, and many of them have eyes with pupils which expand and contract like those of a cat, enabling them to see well by day and night, while a quick sense of hearing warns them of any danger near.