QUADRUPEDS. 23 



appreciating his superiority and pre-eminence. The princes 

 and great lords hold him in much estimation, because he is 

 endowed above every other with gravity, capacity, and the 

 appearance of wisdom. He is easily trained to the per- 

 formance of a variety of ceremonies, grimaces, and affected 

 courtesies ; all which he accomplishes in so serious a man- 

 ner and to such perfection, that it is a most wonderful thing 

 to see them acted with so much exactness by an irrational 

 animal." Of this species there is a fine example in the 

 Edinburgh College Museum. It was kept alive in a do- 

 mestic state for a couple of years ; but the most remarkable 

 instance of its courtesy during that period consisted in its 

 biting off the calf of a negro's leg. It was accordingly 

 slain. 



The preceding examples must suffice to illustrate the 

 history of the quadrumanous tribes of India. We come 

 next to the Cheiroptcnis family, which includes and is con- 

 stituted by the bats. 



When the " knell of parting day" announces the approach 

 of the long-continued twilight of our temperate regions, we 

 see our own diminutive species flitting about on leathern 

 wings, or dimpling the surface of the still waters in search 

 of insects and other natural prey ; but these give us but a 

 feeble idea of the monstrous forms wliich inhabit equatorial 

 countries. The Indian species belong chiefly to the genus 

 Pteropus. The eatable rousette (Pt. edults), called kalon by 

 the natives, is abundant in the great .\siatic islands. Its 

 flesh is white, delicate, and remarkably tender. Its wings 

 extend more than five feet from point to point, and its muz- 

 zle resembles that of a dog with the point of its nose cut 

 in two. It is taken by means of a sack fastened to the ex- 

 tremity of a pole. Its flesh is rendered less pleasing to 

 European palates on account of the strong odour of musk 

 with which it is infected. 



We now enter upon the history of the carnivorous tribes, 

 of which the first family is the Plantigrada, including the 

 extensively distributed though not very numerous group ot 

 bears, as well as the racoons, coati-mundis, badgers, and 

 other species, characterized, as the family-name implies, by 

 their walking on the entire under-surface of the foot, and 

 not merely on the points of the toes after the manner of 



