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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



should singe his eyelids. He permits you to lift his claw, but drops 

 it as soon as you withdraw your hand. If you prod him, he breaks 

 forth in a moan that seems to express a lament over the painfulness 

 of earthly affairs in general rather than resentment of your particular 

 act. By-and-by his love of caloric may lure him back to the sunny 

 side of the tree, but no incentives a tergo will accelerate his move- 

 ments. His claws are a quarter of a foot long and rigidly tenacious, 

 and, once unhooked, he forthwith transfers his attachment to your 

 own person. After spreading his talons fan-shape, he clasps your arm 

 with an intimacy that seems intended to reassure you of his peaceful 

 intentions, but will gradually draw himself well up, as if unwilling to 

 interfere with your locomotive facilities. 



But, as Stanislaus Augustus said from sad experience, " Innocence 

 is no excuse before the tribunal of war," and, in the tropics at least, a 

 state of nature is a state of incessant warfare. In spite, therefore, of 

 all his precautions and his monopoly of an almost unlimited food- 

 supply, the sloth is found nowhere in great numbers ; his enemies are 

 too many for a creature that can neither fight nor fly. The harpy- 



2^ 



Fie. 4. A New Departure. 



eagle skims the tree-tops of the tierra caliente, or falls upon him like 

 a flash from the clouds ; the lynx lurks in the twilight of the shade- 

 trees ; the sneaking ocelot explores the inmost penetralia of the liana- 

 maze ; if he meets him, he meets his death. Carnivora have to com- 

 bine caution with sudden swiftness to catch a monkey in day-time, but 

 sloth-hunting is a search rather than a chase ; small palm-cats or slug- 



