1 74 THE MONKE Y FA MIL Y. 



possible, for this bird to maintain a firm hold on the branch of a tree. 

 Pray, who has ever seen a swift sitting or standing upon a tree? 

 Such a sight, indeed, would be a phenomenon of no ordinary kind, 

 even in this our own age of stupendous marvels. On wing, it spends 

 the live-long day ; on wing, it captures food ; and on wing it 

 seizes feathers floating in the air, and takes them to its nest, for the 

 purpose of incubation ; and when night sets in it retires to rest in 

 the holes of towers, and under the eaves of houses, but never on the 

 branches of the trees. 



In addition to the remarks which I formerly made in the " Wan- 

 derings " on the habits of the sloth, I could wish to introduce a few 

 more here, concerning this solitary inhabitant of the tropical forests ; 

 because the sloth never comes to the ground, except by pure acci- 

 dent, and its habits will serve to corroborate the remarks which I 

 am about to make on the nature and formation of monkeys. 

 These remarks will not be long. 



We often complain of libels by man against man in civilised life ; 

 but, if ever a poor creature's character was torn in pieces by incon- 

 siderate and ignorant assailants, certainly the sloth has great cause 

 to vent its complaints of ill-treatment. Anatomists in Europe, and 

 travellers abroad, when writing on the formation and on the habits 

 of the sloth, seemed only to have added blunder to blunder ; as 

 though they had been wandering in the dark, without a ray of light 

 to show them the path which they ought to have pursued. A bare 

 inspection of the limbs of the sloth, ought to have enabled inspectors 

 to assert positively that this animal was never modelled by the 

 hand of our all-wise Creator to walk upon the ground. Notwith- 

 standing this, one author remarks that, " from a defect in the struc- 

 ture of the sloths, the misery of these animals is not more conspicu- 

 ous than their slowness." Again, " To regard these bungled sketches 

 as beings equally perfect with others to call in the aid of final 

 causes to account for such disproportioned productions and to 

 make nature as brilliant in these as in her most beautiful animals, is 

 to view her through a narrow tube, and to substitute our own fancies 

 for her intentions." And again, " In fine, when the pressure of 

 hunger becomes superior to the dread of danger or death, being 

 unable to descend," (why so?) "they allow themselves to tumble 



