PROCYON AND ITS HABITS 
natured and sportive, but as unlucky as a monkey.” 
He furthermore described it as very inquisitive, and 
alleges that it will, if the opportunity arise, “ like Roger 
the monk, get excessively drunk.’ The American 
Aubudon, with his colleague Bachman, called it 
“ cunnning, easily tamed, and makes a pleasant monkey- 
like pet.” Itis indeed a very Paul Pry among non-human 
mammals. This renders it not so desirable as a pet; 
for it will uncork bottles, open doors, and generally put 
its nose and fingers where they shouldnotbe. Inastate 
of nature the Procyon is “sly, dey-vilish sly.” The 
beast watches, we are told, the turtle when about to 
deposit her eggs, and “ sometimes by the margin ofa pond 
or crouched among tall reeds and grasses, grimalkin- 
like, the raccoon lies still as death waiting with patience 
for some ill-fated duck that may come within its reach.” 
All or nearly all is fish that comes to the raccoon’s net. 
Poultry, mice, eggs, insects and fruit form the staple of 
its diet ; and it will turn over stones in its search for 
crayfish. The southern species is so called on this very 
account. ‘‘ The habits of the muscles (sc) that inhabit 
our freshwater rivers are better known to the raccoon 
than to most conchologists,’ wrote Audubon and 
Bachman. And there are legends to the effect that in 
its quest of oysters, the raccoon sometimes gets a paw 
shut in the shell of the angry mollusc, and thus fast 
trapped is drowned by the rising tide. This, however, is 
a tale which has been naturally viewed with suspicion. 
It is clear, notwithstanding, that the raccoon is very 
‘universal in its choice of food, a circumstance 
which is always to the advantage of an animal 
with so wide ataste. Omnivorousness is also writ large 
upon its teeth, the molars being wide crowned and 
’ tubercular, not thin and with cutting edges as in the 
purely carnivorous cat tribe. It seems to be generally 
believed that the raccoon handles and washes its food 
II5 
