TAIL OF MONKEYS. 335 



of the cloven foot ; while the nails, instead of being weak, are 

 very powerfully developed and strongly curved. The easy sepa- 

 ration of the toes, combined with the modifications of the pad and 

 hoof here referred to, is of manifest utility to an animal whose 

 life is destined to be spent, unlike that of his more valued con- 

 gener, on the rugged slopes and precipices of a mountainous 

 district. 



The tail of the mammalians likewise undergoes many modi- 

 fications of form, according to the services it is required to 

 render. In many quadrupeds it is of stunted proportions, or 

 even entirely wanting, as in the anthropomorphous apes the 

 chimpanzee, the gorilla, the orang, and the gibbons in others 

 it serves as an ornament, or merely to drive away or punish 

 troublesome insects ; but in many cases its functions are of a 

 much more important nature, or even completely indispensable. 

 Thus the powerful prehensile tail of many of the American 

 monkeys is fully entitled to be called a fifth hand, which emi- 

 nently contributes to the celerity of their movements, and is 

 hardly less wonderful in its structure than the proboscis of the 

 elephant. Covered with short hair, and completely bare under- 

 neath towards the end, this admirable organ rolls round the 

 boughs as though it were a supple finger, and is at the same 

 time so muscular that the monkey frequently swings with it 

 from a branch, like the pendulum of a clock. Scarce has he 

 grasped a bough with his long arms, when, immediately coiling 

 his fifth hand round the branch, he springs on to the next, 

 and, secure from a fall, hurries so rapidly through the crowns 

 of the highest trees that the sportsman's ball has scarcely time 

 to reach him in his flight. When the miriki, the largest of 

 the Brazilian monkeys, sitting or stretched out at full length, 

 suns himself on a high branch, his tail suffices to support him in 

 his aerial resting-place ; and even 

 when mortally wounded, he remains 

 a long time suspended by it, until, 

 life being quite extinct, his heavy 

 body, breaking many a bough as it 

 descends, falls with a loud crash to KinkajoU v?i?S?i 1 S ptes caudl " 

 the ground. 



The coandu (Cercoleptes coandu), a kind of American porcu- 

 pine, and the kinkajou or potto, a mild inoffensive plantigrade, 



