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 
