30 LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 



insects or flies, which form part of their food, they proceed 

 with extraordinary deUberation, never quickening their move- 

 ments, and yet rarely, if ever, missing their prey. 



Bosman in his description of the Gold Coast of Guinea, 

 gives a woodcut of the Potto, which, he says, is a "Draught 

 of a Creature, by the Negroes called Potto, but known to us 

 by the Name of Sluggard, doubtless from its lazy, sluggish 

 Nature ; a whole day being little enough for it to advance ten 

 Steps forward. 



*' Some Writers affirm, that when this Creature has cHmbed 

 upon a Tree, he doth not leave it until he hath eaten up not 

 only the Fruit, but the leaves intirely ; and then descends fat 

 and in very good case in order to get up into another Tree ; 

 but before his slow pace can compass this, he becomes as poor 

 and lean as 'tis possible to imagine : And if the trees be high, 

 or the way anything distant, and he meets with nothing on his 

 journey, he inevitably dies of Hunger, betwixt one tree and 

 the other. Thus 'tis represented by others, but I will not 

 undertake for the Truth of it ; though the Negroes are apt to 

 believe something like it. 



" This is such a horrible ugly Creature that I don't believe 

 anything besides so very disagreeable is to be found on the 

 whole Earth ; the Print is a very lively Description of it : Its 

 Fore-feet are very like Hands, the Head strangely dispropor- 

 tionately large ; that from whence this Print was taken was of 

 a pale Mouse colour : but it was then very young, and his Skin 

 yet smooth, but when old, as I saw one at Elmina in the year 

 1699, 'tis red and covered with a sort of Hair as thick set as 

 Flocks of Wool. I know nothing more of this Animal, than 

 that 'tis impossible to look on him without Honour, and that 

 he hath nothing very particular but his odious Ugliness." 



