392 
THE STORY OF THE COBEGO, 
to ascend. I paced the distance from the one tree to the other, and found 
it to be seventy yards; and the amount of descent I estimated at not more 
than thirty-five or forty feefi or less than one in five. This I think proves 
that the animal must have some power of guiding itself through the air, 
otherwise in so long a distance it would have little chance of alighting upon 
the trunk. The cobego feeds chiefly on leaves, and possesses a very volum¬ 
inous stomach. The hair is very small; and the animal possesses such a 
remarkable tenacity of life that it is exceedingly difficult to kill it by any 
THE COBEGO OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 
ordinary means. The tail is prehensile, and is probably made use of as an 
additional support while feeding. The animal is said to have one or two 
young at a time, and my own observation confirms this statement, for I 
once shot a female, with a very small, blind, and naked little creature cling¬ 
ing closely to its breast, which was quite bare and much wrinkled. On the 
back, and extending over the limbs and membrane, the fur of these animals 
is short but exquisitely soft, resembling in its texture that of the chinchilla. 
