. An introduction to the study of mammals living and extinct. Mammals. PROCYONID^ 565 plantigrade, but in walking the entire sole is not applied to the ground as it is when the animal is standing. Toes, especially of the fore foot, very free, and capable of being spread wide apart. Claws compressed, curved, pointed, and non-retractile. Tail moder- ately long, cylindrical, thickly covered with hair, annulated, non- prehensile. Fur long, thick, and soft. The well-known Eaccoon ^ {Procyon lotor, Fig. 260) of North America is the type of this genus. It is a clumsy thickly-built animal about the si
. An introduction to the study of mammals living and extinct. Mammals. PROCYONID^ 565 plantigrade, but in walking the entire sole is not applied to the ground as it is when the animal is standing. Toes, especially of the fore foot, very free, and capable of being spread wide apart. Claws compressed, curved, pointed, and non-retractile. Tail moder- ately long, cylindrical, thickly covered with hair, annulated, non- prehensile. Fur long, thick, and soft. The well-known Eaccoon ^ {Procyon lotor, Fig. 260) of North America is the type of this genus. It is a clumsy thickly-built animal about the size of a Badger, with a coat of long coarse grayish-brown hairs, short ears, and a bushy black and white ringed tail. Its range extends over the whole of. Fig. -iju.—'I'he J-fiiecjoii (l^rucyoiL hlur). the United States, and stretches on the west northwards to Alaska and southwards into Central America, where it attains its maximum size. The following notes on the habits of the Eaccoon are taken from Dr. C. H. Merriam's Mammals of the Adiroadach Region:— " Eaccoons are omnivorous beasts, and feed upon mice, small birds, birds' eggs, turtles and their eggs, frogs, fish, crayfish, molluscs, insects, nuts, fruits, maize, and sometimes poultry. Ex- cepting the bats and flying squirrels, they are the most strictly nocturnal of all our mammals, and yet I have several times seen them abroad on cloudy days. They haunt the banks of ponds and streams, and find much of their food in these places, such as ' A corruption of the North American Indian "arrathkune" or "; The French mton or raton laveur, German WasMdr, and other European names are derived from a curious habit the Raccoon has of dipping or washing its food in water before eating Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the origin
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Keywords: ., bookauthorly, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectmammals
