22 A HISTORY OF 



of finding something still left, it is at last obliged to encounter all the 

 dangers that attend it below. Though it is formed by nature for 

 climbing a tree with great pain and difficulty, yet it is unable to de- 

 scend ; it therefore is obliged to drop from the branches to the ground, 

 and as it is incapable of exerting itself to break the violence of its de- 

 scent, it drops like a shapeless heavy mass, and feels no small shock 

 in the fall. There, after remaining some time torpid, it prepares for 

 a journey to some neighbouring tree ; but this of all migrations is tho 

 most tedious, dangerous, and painful ; it often takes a week in crawl- 

 ing to a tree not fifty yards distant ; it moves with imperceptible 

 slowness, and often baits by the way. All motions seem to torture it ; 

 every step it takes it sets forth a most plaintive, melancholy cry, 

 which from some distant similitude to the human voice, excites a kind 

 of disgust, mixed with pity. This plaintive sound seems its chief de- 

 fence, few quadrupeds appear willing to interrupt its progress, either 

 that the flesh is offensive, or that they are terrified at its cries. When 

 at length they reach their destined tree, they mount it with much 

 greater ease than when they moved upon the plain. They fall to with 

 famished appetite, and, as before, destroy the very source that sup- 

 plies them. 



