VOL. XXIV.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. jQQ 



in the ape kind, and is of a vermillion colour; the scrotum of an azure colour, 

 It has no tail: it is very fierce, having two long tusks in the upper jaw, and is 

 very lascivious; the fore feet perfectly resemble hands, having long and thick 

 fingers and a thumb, and all the nail^ of those fingers fiat; the nails on the 

 hinder toes and fingers are imbricated, not flat; and though the claws were 

 pretty long, and somewhat imitating fingers, yet the thumb is not so perfect, 

 and the whole differs from the fore feet. When sitting and supporting itself 

 by a stick in one hand, being thus erect, and holding a cup in the other, it 

 would drink out of it, and not lap; its food was chiefly fruits. 



Among those animals whose fore feet are like hands, and have no thumb, I 

 reckon the porcupine kind: as the cuandu of Brasil, a sort of porcupine described 

 by Margrave and Jo. NieuhofF, Voyages p. 1 8, which on the fore feet has only 

 four fingers, on the hinder five. Therefore, as Margrave observes, for want of 

 a thumb, it is but slow in climbing trees; but the better to help itself it twists 

 its tail about a bough to save itself from falling. And much alike, if not the 

 same, is the tlaquatzin spinosum of Hernandez. Also the common porcupine, 

 before has four fingers, behind five. So the tamandua of Brasil, or ant-bear, 

 before has only four fingers, where the want of length in the fingers is supplied 

 by that of the nails, and behind it has five toes. But I must confess there 

 must be some allowance made for ranging this anomalous animal, as Mr. Ray 

 calls it, here; but because he climbs trees, and in doing this makes use of his 

 tail, as some others here mentioned do, I was willing to include him with the 

 rest. And we may likewise bring in here the ai, the ignavus, or sloth, because 

 it climbs and lives on trees, and has a head not unlike an ape's; and, as Mar- 

 grave assures us, two teats on the breast, but on each foot only three claws, 

 with very long nails, like the tamandua, and its feet being very narrow and 

 thus defective in toes, it is very slow in motion. 



Now to conclude this scheme, among the animals whose hinder feet only are 

 like hands, is to be reckoned the carig'ueya or opossum, which having described 

 at large in the anatomy of the female opossum, I shall not insist farther on it 

 here; and if there be any other animals that have their hinder feet formed like 

 hands, either with or without a thumb, intending to include all those animals 

 that are observed to climb or live on trees into a class together: and they being 

 observed to have their claws, either all or several of them, formed like fingers, 

 I place them therefore under this general title of animalia ^u^o-Sx^tvXx. 



Now, to return from this digression, we shall proceed in our observations on 

 the male opossum, omitted in the account given of the female. In describing 

 the ears, I had not an opportunity of observing that white rim that encircles 

 them, which is very beautiful: for when the animal is in health there runs, for 



