HABITS.--Like the Slender Loris, the Slow-Loris is arboreal and nocturnal, hardly differing in its food and general habits from the latter. It lives alone or in pairs, and moves about very slowly, with its head curiously drawn up close to its body, with the latter arched and its limbs very angularly disposed. Colonel Tickell has observed it, however, to raise itself on its hind-legs and throw itself upon an insect. It is generally silent, but can utter a low growl when angry. In captivity it becomes docile, but is never very long-lived. Tickell records that "it never by choice leaves the trees.... It climbs readily and grasps with great tenacity. If placed on the ground, it proceeds, if frightened, in a wavering kind of trot, the limbs placed at right angles. It sleeps rolled up in a ball, its head and hands buried between its thighs, and wakes up in the dusk of the evening to commence its nocturnal rambles." Another observer records: "When he climbs he first lays hold of the branch with one of his hands and then with the other. When he has obtained a firm hold with both hands, he moves one of his hind-paws, and after firmly grasping the branch with it, he moves the other. He never quits his hold with his hind-paws until he has obtained a secure grasp with his hands." The remarkable tenacity of grasp in its feet is largely due to the { 37}automatic action of the flexor muscles of the toes (the digits continuing flexed even after death), and the mere extension of the leg largely contributes to the "effortless suspension of the body" (_Murie_), as in the Fruit-Bats and other species which hang passively by their hind-limbs. (_Huxley._)
Dr. Coghlan, speaking of the Chinese race (_N. cinereus_), says: "They make a curious chattering noise when angry, and when pleased at night they utter a short though tuneful whistle of one unvaried note; this whistle is thought by Chinese sailors, who take them to sea, to denote the coming of wind.... Their intelligence seems to be much below that of the Monkey.... The Slow-Loris, when newly-born, is about four inches long, and covered with fur; it holds on by its four hands to the mother's fur, and in that attitude sucks the milk from its parent's breast."