His enormous and weak bill seems made for the purpose of swallowing bananas whole; how he feeds himself with it in the forest it is difficult to guess: and when he hops up and down on his great clattering feet--two toes turned forward, and two back--twisting head and beak right and left (for he cannot see well straight before him) to see whence the bananas are coming; or when again, after gorging a couple, he sits gulping and winking, digesting them in serene satisfaction, he is as good a specimen as can be seen of the ludicrous--dare I say the intentionally ludicrous ?--element in nature.
Next to him is a Kinkajou; {91a} a beautiful little furry bear--or racoon--who has found it necessary for his welfare in this world of trees to grow a long prehensile tail, as the monkeys of the New World have done.

He sleeps by day; save when woke up to eat a banana, or to scoop the inside out of an egg with his long lithe tongue: but by night he remembers his forest-life, and performs strange dances by the hour together, availing himself not only of his tail, which he uses just as the spider monkey does, but of his hind feet, which he can turn completely round at will, till the claws point forward like those of a bat.

But with him, too, the tail is the sheet-anchor, by which he can hold on, and bring all his four feet to bear on his food.

So it is with the little Ant-eater, {91b} who must needs climb here to feed on the tree ants.

So it is, too, with the Tree Porcupine, {91c} or Coendou, who (in strange contrast to the well-known classic Porcupine of the rocks of Southern Europe) climbs trees after leaves, and swings about like the monkeys.