ORDER CARNASSIER. 257 



attached to them. In general these animals are very adroit 

 in the use of their paws. They use them very cleverly in 

 climbing and descending trees ; and they do not descend 

 backwards like most other animals. They come down 

 head foremost, hooking with their hinder paws, which they 

 have an extraordinary faculty of reversing to great extent. 

 The voice of this Coati was a gentle hissing when in good 

 humour, and a very shrill and piercing cry when under the 

 influence of pain or anger. 



This same individual, without being precisely malicious, 

 was never completely tamed ; and though at times he would 

 permit caresses, at others he would bite sharply. On this 

 account it was necessary to keep him continually shut up. 

 This confinement did not allow scope for the full impulse of 

 his character, and complete exercise of his intelligence. 

 But his disposition generally resembled so closely that of 

 the Brown Coati, that we may conjecture that in such re- 

 spects there is not much difference between the species, 

 and the latter has been often completely tamed. Laborde 

 says that the Red Coati lives retired in the largest woods, 

 generally in companies of no more than three or four indi- 

 viduals of the species ; while, on the contrary, the Brown 

 Coatis live in large troops. But this information is not 

 sufficiently important or authentic to illustrate the history 

 of the species. 



As the earth is subject to such numerous variations which 

 exercise very opposite influences on animal life, and as 

 each country in particular experiences the effects of many 

 transitory and accidental causes, nature, by a necessary 

 consequence, has bestowed upon her creatures the faculty 

 of being modified in proportion to the extent and operation 

 of such causes, and of being conformed to the various cir- 

 cumstances by which they are surrounded. This is one of 

 the wisest regulations in the economy of the universe (if 

 indeed among so many proofs of omnipotent wisdom we 



Vol, II. S 



