NATURAL HISTORY. 8i 



This animal lias a practice of eating its own tail, 

 which when not mutilated, is longer than its body, and 

 which it generally raises aloft, and can move with ease 

 in any direction. 



From this circumstance we may infer, that in those 

 parts of which the extremities are consequently very 

 remote from the seat of the senses, that feeling must 

 be. weak, and the more so, the greater the distance, 

 and the smaller the part. 



As for the coati in other respects, it is an animal 

 of prey, which subsists on flesh and blood, which like 

 the fox, destroys small animals and poultry, hunts 

 for the nest* of little birds, and devours their eggs ; 

 and it is probably front this conformity of disposition 

 that some authors have cohsidered the eoati, as a spe- 

 cies of small fox. 



THE AGOUTI. 



Tins animal is about the size of a hare, and has 

 been improperly considered as a kind of rabbit, or large 

 rat, by the greater number of nomenclators. It has 

 both the hair of a hog, and the voracious appetite of 

 Vhat animal. It eats every thing indiscriminately; 



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