MAMMALIA. 



143 



though they occasionally traverse them. Their march 

 is more rapid, and they can continue it longer, than 

 one would readily suppose ; but still the^' are not well 

 adapted for giving chace, even when they seek for 

 animal food ; and their subsistence is often wild honey, 

 and fruits, and other succulent vegetable matters, 

 which they can procure only by climbing. Woods 

 and places with rough and rocky surfaces are, there- 

 fore, their proper localities; and their peculiar organ- 

 isation enables them to climb the rock and the tree 

 with equal ease, which is beyond the power of the 

 handed or grasping- animals, whose chief locality is 

 in the forest, and the only pathway on which they 

 are quite at home is the branches. 



Some particulars of the Indian species will be found 

 in the article BEAR ; but we may mention here, for 

 the sake of illustrating the climbing powers of these 

 animal*, that the jungle bear, the Malay bear, and 

 probably some other species or varieties which inhabit 

 that paradise of succulent fruits the south-east of 

 Asia, and the adjacent isles, live habitually on fruits, 

 for which they have to climb, and that often to a con- 

 siderable height. Nor do they merely ascend and 

 pull what they want, for they can reach the fruit of a 

 lofty palm, and break the shell, or they can get to 

 the more central bud, bite it off, and extract the 

 copious supply of sweet juice which flows from the 

 wound. This habitual feeding upon sweets is said 

 to affect them with a greater loss of teeth than is 

 known amoii the average of the mammalia in a wild 

 state. The feats of these bears in climbing are dif- 

 ferent in character from those of the handed animals, 

 but they equally entitle them to the character of 

 climbers ; and although, in common language, the 

 bear is usually taken as the very model of clumsiness, 

 yet when we come to examine his organisation and 

 his action, we find that he is an animal of no ordinary 

 resources, and that there are none of the mammalia 

 better fitted for holding their place and playing their 

 part in the grand system of nature. 



The bear may in fact be considered as the typical 

 animal of climbers of one class, as the ape is the 

 typical animal of another. All the plantigrade mam- 

 malia are climbers to some extent or other ; and it is 

 obvious to accommodate this climbing habit that they 

 are plantigrade. For mere walking this would be a 

 disadvantage, because a plantigrade motion is slower 

 and performed with more difficulty than a motion on 

 the toes. To have given these, which are chiefly 

 predatory animals, a worse walking motion than others 

 Dave, without any compensation for it, would have 

 bci-n contrary to all that we meet with in the rest of 

 nature ; and this alone is sufficient to lead us to the 

 conclusion that they have some other office to per- 

 form with their feet." 



Advantage, though given to each in a different 

 way, is yet given so equally to all animals that if we 

 find any animal worse adapted than another for the 

 performance of any one function, we may be certain 

 that the one which is less adapted for that particular 

 function is capable of some other function which can 

 counterbalance the deficiency; and this is our grand 

 inducement to find out the additional one. This 

 equality of endowment possessed by all the living 

 children of nature, taken on the average of their 

 several species, is one of the greatest encouragements 

 and helps to all who wish to study nature. 



We shall not enumerate all the modifications of 

 the climbing habit of the plantigrade mammalia. 

 None of them possesses the same power of hugging 



with the fore legs as the bear, but the general manner 

 is the same ; and this is the compensation for the 

 inferiority of their walking motion as being planti- 

 grade ; in like manner as the climbing of the quad- 

 rumana and the flying of the bats are their com- 

 pensations for the same ; and in all the three, the 

 deficiency on the one hand and the compensation on 

 the other are in proportion, and balanced with the 

 greatest nicety. The annexed sketch will show the 

 position of the paws in bears and other plantigrade 

 mammalia, when they hold on or climb by means of 

 these as hooks. 



We shall mention only another modification of the 

 climbing organs of mammalia, namely the form in 

 which they appear in the sloths. The organisation 

 of the limbs of these animals is such that they cannot 

 walk, except at an exceedingly slow and crawling 

 pace, and w ith the utmost fatigue and difficulty. They 

 do not make their way readily along the upper side 

 of a horizontal or sloping branch, and they climb the 

 upright trunk of a tree very slowly. In all situations 

 indeed in which the weight of the body is supported 

 from below, their powers of locomotion work to a 

 disadvantage, and are cramped and effectless. 



Sloths are in fact the reverse of all other mammalia, 

 in respect of the position in which they have the 

 most easy repose and the most vigorous action. Other 

 mammalia sleep with the belly, or at any rate the 

 side, to the ground ; and the natural position of action 

 in all the rest, whether that action is in the air, in the 

 water, on trees, on the ground, or under the ground, 

 is with the back uppermost. Some of the climbers 

 can indeed move along tha under side of a branch, or 

 at all events hold on in that position ; but it is unna- 

 tural to them, they cannot continue in it for any 

 length of time, and, if they were to get asleep, they 

 would inevitably tumble to the ground. Not so with 

 sloths, for their whole organisation is so well adapted 

 for maintaining them firmly in this reverse position, 

 that it is the only one in which they can be said to 

 be perfectly stable. Their feet are formed as hooks, 

 by which the weight of the body is hung, and they 

 do not answer at all for bearing it up after the man- 

 ner of ordinary legs. Inhabiting higher in the trees 

 than any other mammalia, and subsisting entirely on 

 the leaves which are between them and the sky, their 

 hanging position is the one in which they can have 

 most command over their food. Even their fore feet 

 are never used for seizing the food, or conveying it 

 to the mouth, for their claws and toes are not adapted 

 for grasping, unless when they are pulled against by 

 the weight of the body. They are closed down upon 

 the sole, not by the exertion of flexor muscles, but 

 by elastic ligaments ; and as those ligaments are 

 more powerful than the extensor muscle, by means of 

 which the animal moves along the branch, or from 



