Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/157

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THE COATI-MONDI AND ITS COUSINS.
145

ing her persecutor dazed with astonishment. Then, in a moment, forgetting all, she would turn her attention to the setter-dog, and, despite his growls and menacing teeth, would keep up a systematic worrying, catching at his tail, nipping at his legs, and even poking her nose into

Fig. 9.

Ring-tailed Lemur (Lemur catta). The Lemurs constitute the lowest family of the Monkeys. A little animal of South America, known as the Kinkajou, is, in external aspect and general habit, very like the Lemurs, and yet is placed by systematists close to, and in the same family with, the Coati-Mondi to whom its plantigrade feet show its near relationship. But this first-cousin of Coati-Mondi is also not unlike the Sapajous, or hijar monkeys, for it has a head like them, and also their accomplishment of a long prehensile tail (see Fig. 10.) Coati-Mondi has Lemurine traits also.

his ears. At length, the poor brute, fairly goaded into rage, seized her like a rat, and, but for my prompt interference, that would have been the last display of Nasua's rashness. One morning she got into the dining-room as we were at breakfast. She took possession of mad-