PROCVONID-E 565 
plantigrade, but in walking the entire sole is not applied to the 
ground as it is when the animal is standing. Toes, especially of 
the fore foot, very free, and capable of being spread wide apart. 
Claws compressed, curved, pointed, and non-retractile. Tail moder- 
ately long, cylindrical, thickly covered with hair, annulated, non- 
prehensile. Fur long, thick, and soft. The well-known Raccoon 4 
(Procyon lotor, Fig. 260) of North America is the type of this genus. 
It is a clumsy thickly-built animal about the size of a Badger, with 
a coat of long coarse grayish-brown hairs, short ears, and a bushy 
black and white ringed tail. Its range extends over the whole of 
Fie. 260.—The Raecoon (Procyon lotor). 
the United States, and stretches on the west northwards to Alaska 
and southwards into Central America, where it attains its maximum 
size. The following notes on the habits of the Raccoon are taken 
from Dr. C. H. Merriam’s MJummuals of the Adirondack Region : 
“Raccoons are omnivorous beasts, and feed upon mice, small 
birds, birds’ eggs, turtles and their eggs, frogs, fish, crayfish, 
molluscs, insects, nuts, fruits, maize, and sometimes poultry. Ex- 
cepting the bats and flying squirrels, they are the most strictly 
nocturnal of all our mammals, and yet I have several times seen 
them abroad on cloudy days. They haunt the banks of ponds 
and streams, and find much of their food in these places, such as 
6c 
1 A corruption of the North American Indian ‘‘arrathkune”’ or ‘‘arathcone.” 
The French raton or raton laveur, German Waschbér, and other European names 
are derived from a curious habit the Raccoon has of dipping or washing its food in 
water before eating it. 
