ANIMAL SAGACITY. 475 



handled, they pursued their wonted frolicking, and 

 moved about as when free and at large. They 

 planted their feet and hands on the limbs like bears, 

 and climbed leisurely, but with great facility, along 

 the branches, and descended rather rapidly. We 

 may suppose they would hardly take to trees at all, 

 however they might fail in making good their retreat 

 up them, unless they were familiarly acquainted with 

 them. They only seem to fail to do hurriedly that 

 which they can at any time effect only deliberately. 



"Although the extremities of the Indian Cony 

 exhibit such fitness for holding and grasping, they 

 appear never to be applied to the purposes of 

 digging and burrowing. They may extract the roots, 

 which they make part of their food, by scratching 

 the ground and drawing out such portions as their 

 strength may manage ; but they never remove the 

 earth to any depth to reach the esculent under- 

 ground provisions of the Negro garden; yet when they 

 are enticed to take the rude traps and springes which 

 the Negroes set for them, the temptation is always 

 some piece of the large farinaceous roots, which by 

 their own labour they can never procure for them- 

 selves. Their delicacy of scent enables them to 

 perceive when any substance has been previously 

 touched and handled. It would be quite hopeless to 

 entice the Cony to the trap by setting it at once. 

 It is necessary to reconcile him to feed on the roots 

 which are to attract him, by permitting him for a 

 succession of nights to eat without danger, by strew- 

 ing the food about the unset trap. When it has 

 been ascertained by what has been devoured in the 



