The sapajous are very sagacious and dexterous: they go in companies, and mutually warn and assist each other. Their tail serves them exactly like a fifth hand; and they seem even to employ that more than either their hands or feet. Nature by this addition seems to have recompensed them for the want of a thumb. It is asserted that they catch fish with this long tail, and which does not appear incredible, for we have seen one of our coaita’s lay hold of a squirrel, which had been put into the same apartment, with his tail, and drag him out. Russel, in his History of Jamaica, speaking of this animal, says, “this creature has no more than four fingers to each of its fore paws: but the top of the tail is smooth underneath, and on this it depends for its chief actions, for the creature holds every thing by it, and flings itself with the greatest ease from every tree and branch by its means. It is a native of the main continent, and a part of the food of the Indians.” They have the address to break the shell of the oysters, in order to eat them; and it is certain that many of them suspend themselves to the tail of each other, either to pass over a brook, or to swing from one tree to another. The females bring forth only one or two young ones at a time, which they always carry on their backs. They feed upon fish, worms, and insects, but fruit is their common food, and they grow fat when it is ripe, when, it is said, their flesh is good and exquisite eating.
Distinctive Characters of this Species.
The coaita has neither pouches on the sides of his jaws, nor callosities on the posteriors: he has a very long prehensile tail. The partition of the nostrils is very thick, and the apertures are placed on the side, and not under the nose. He has only four fingers on his hands or fore-feet: his hair and skin are black: his face is naked and tawny: his ears are also naked, and of the same form as the human race. He is about a foot and a half long, and his tail is longer than the head and body together; he walks on all fours.
The exquima is nearly of the same size as the coaita, and, like that animal, has a prehensile tail; his hair, however, is not black, but variegated. There are some which are black and brown on the back and white on the belly, with a very remarkable beard. These differences, however, are not sufficient to constitute two different species, especially as there are coaitas not entirely black, but which have a whitish hair on the throat and belly.
Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.
FIG. 213.Coati. FIG. 214. Brown Capuchin.
