THE COATI-MONDI AND ITS COUSINS. 147 



istence in certain animals, both fossil and recent, of two sets of traits 

 one proper to, and marking their peculiar individuality as members 

 of an order, tribe, or family ; and the other set, although found in 

 them, yet destined to a fuller unfolding in animals yet to be created, 

 and to mark their peculiarities. In a word, the species in question 

 was regarded as looking forward to or foreshadowing, in these seem- 

 ingly eccentric traits, the characteristics of tribes yet to come. As, 

 for example, take the ancient Ganoids, or fishes, covered with shining, 

 bony scales, as the word signifies. Their common representative, 

 now, is the sturgeon, which, though a fish, has structural and physio- 

 logical points that belong to the reptiles. Regarding these curious 

 traits as put together in one individual, and in a sense to be yet sepa- 

 rated from it, and specialized in other and higher animals, Agassiz in- 

 vented, felicitously, as we think, a term to express these facts, namely, 

 " synthetic type." Dana prefers the phrase " comprehensive type," 

 and Guyot uses the term " undivided type." 



The study of this almost grotesque little animal has proved singu- 

 larly suggestive of certain points of structure and habit, usually re- 

 garded as peculiarities of other animals. In Nasua are found features 

 whicli elsewhere are sufficiently dominant to warrant generic distinc- 

 tion as the architect can specify certain points in the Composite order 

 which are derived from several other orders. To designate the parts 

 that make up this strange unity in our subject may not be easy. The 

 botanist is, at times, perplexed in his effort to formulate the specific 

 distinctions of a simple plant. Let him take an oak, for example and 

 it may be that the analysis is unsatisfactory ; yet the specific concep- 

 tion of the tree, taken from its contour and entirety, may, for all that, 

 be quite trustworthy. To the writer, the Nasua, viewed as a whole in 

 the matter of structure, form, and habit, has appeared to be a syn- 

 thetic, or comprehensive type not, perhaps, a composite, as made up 

 of what had been before, but possibly typical of what was to come. 

 Limited strictly to anatomical analysis, the typical range would be 

 narrowed; but, studied in the above more exhaustive method, the diag- 

 nosis must, we think, be highly significant. It may appear a super- 

 ficial resemblance that is presented in the ornamentation of the respec- 

 tive tails of the coati and the raccoon. But these animals have also 

 anatomical parallels of structure. Both have a similar dental arrange- 

 ment, and both have plantigrade limbs. Here, again, the coati, with 

 the coon, becomes cousin to the bear, for all three have that structure 

 which compels that setting down at once the entire great sole of the 

 foot, and that walking thereon, which the books denominate planti- 

 grade. The three, also, have similarly-shaped heads, similar small 

 eyes, small, trim ears, and peculiar claws, which are, all and several, 

 known as ursine traits. They have also not unlike appetencies 

 of food. They are plantigrade carnivora, and have in common a 

 striking habit which removes them from the pure or digitigrade car- 



