A STEP-CHILD OF NATURE. 93 



manner strangely suggestive of the movements of an 

 imprisoned beetle. They have a curious fashion of mak- 

 ing their way to the very top of every ascendible object, 

 the back of a chair or the elbow of a stove-pipe, and 

 out in the garden often pass the larger part of the day 

 on the knob of a gate-post, brooding perhaps over 

 dreamy mementos of their lost tree-top paradise. If 

 their prison is closed, I have seen them raise themselves 

 on their hind-legs and inspect a piece of clothes-line 

 depending from a nail near the door. They often cast 

 wistful glances in the direction of that rope, — why, I 

 know not, since they are too clumsy to climb it; but I 

 suspect that they would like to get away and go home. 

 The rope possibly reminds them of the bush-ropes dan- 

 gling from the canopy of their native cauchos. Nostal- 

 gia, or rather a vague yearning for freedom, may be the 

 one touch of Nature that makes even the sloth akin to 

 the rest of mammal kind. 



In spite of their formidable claws, they are by no 

 means first-rate climbers : they can hook their way 

 along a horizontal bar and scale a ladder or an arm- 

 chair, but are unable to climb a smooth rope or a 

 smooth slender tree. I once put them 'on the crook 

 of a young apple-tree, to see if they could make their 

 way to the upper branches, but, after clawing away at 

 the stem as if trying to find some notch or protuberance, 

 the male came down head foremost, and vented his 

 shocked feelings in a rasping grunt. 



