236 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



peculiarities above referred to. Linnaeus described 

 it as " victitans fructibus arborum," and in the 

 intestines of specimens received from British 

 Guiana Mr G. E. Dobson found some seeds of 

 fruit, apparently Morus tinctoria. On the other 

 hand, Von Tschudi, writing of its habits as observed 

 in Peru, remarked that it lives in hollow trees and 

 "feeds upon beetles, which we always found in 

 their stomachs." Its insectivorous habits have 

 also been noted in Brazil by Prince Maximilian 

 Wied Neuwied, and in Jamacia by the late P. H. 

 Gosse, who, having procured some live specimens 

 from a hollow cotton tree, found that they fed 

 eagerly on cockroaches. He says : — 



" I presented to one a large cockroach, which 

 he seized greedily and munched up, moving the 

 jaws only vertically. The eating was attended 

 with a loud and very harsh crunching of the teeth, 

 not produced by crushing the horny parts of the 

 insect, for it was equally perceptible when 

 munching a bit of soft flesh. The jaws moved 

 rapidly, but yet the mastication was a long opera- 

 tion, for it appeared to me to be performed almost 

 wholly by the canines. As the insect was pro- 

 gressively masticated, portions were allowed to fall 

 into the cheek pouches (the one being pretty well 

 filled before the other was used), which when full 

 hung down on each side of the lower jaw, like 

 distended bags, displaying a warted surface. When 

 the whole of one cockroach had been masticated, 

 and deposited in the pouches, it would take another, 

 which was gradually disposed of in the same recep- 



