HABITS.--Both species of Potto are nocturnal and arboreal, and are exceedingly slow in their movements. In catching {30}insects or flies, which form part of their food, they proceed with extraordinary deliberation, never quickening their movements, and yet rarely, if ever, missing their prey. Bosman in his description of the Gold Coast of Guinea, gives a woodcut of the Potto, which, he says, is a "Draught of a Creature, by the _Negroes_ called _Potto_, but known to us by the Name of Sluggard, doubtless from its lazy, sluggish Nature; a whole day being little enough for it to advance ten Steps forward. "Some Writers affirm, that when this Creature has climbed upon a Tree, he doth not leave it until he hath eaten up not only the Fruit, but the leaves intirely; and then descends fat and in very good case in order to get up into another Tree; but before his slow pace can compass this, he becomes as poor and lean as 'tis possible to imagine: And if the trees be high, or the way anything distant, and he meets with nothing on his journey, he inevitably dies of Hunger, betwixt one tree and the other. Thus 'tis represented by others, but I will not undertake for the Truth of it; though the _Negroes_ are apt to believe something like it. "This is such a horrible ugly Creature that I don't believe anything besides so very disagreeable is to be found on the whole Earth; the Print is a very lively Description of it: Its Fore-feet are very like Hands, the Head strangely disproportionately large; that from whence this Print was taken was of a pale Mouse colour: but it was then very young, and his Skin yet smooth, but when old, as I saw one at _Elmina_ in the year 1699, 'tis red and covered with a sort of Hair as thick set as Flocks of Wool. I know nothing more of this Animal, than that 'tis impossible to look on him without Horrour, and that he hath nothing very particular but his odious Ugliness." {31}THE SLENDER LORIS. GENUS LORIS. _Loris_, Geoffr., Mag. Encycl., Ann. 2, i., p. 48 (1796). _Stenops_, Illiger, Prodr., p. 73 (1811). As this genus contains only a solitary species, its characters are necessarily those of the species. I. THE SLENDER LORIS. LORIS GRACILIS. _Loris gracilis_, Geoffr., Magas. Encycl. Ann. 4, i., p. 48 (1796); id. Catal., p. 37, no. 1 (1803); id. Ann. Mus., xix., p. 163 (1812); Is. Geoffr., Cat. Méth. Primates, p. 79 (1851); Blyth, Cat. Mamm. As. Soc., p. 19 (1863); Anderson, Cat. Mamm. Ind. Mus., p. 97 (1881); Blanf., Faun. Brit. Ind. Mamm., p. 47 (1888). _Nycticebus gracilis_, Fischer, Syn. Mamm., p. 70 (1829); Schl., Mus. Pays Bas, vii., p. 284 (1876). _Stenops tardigradus_, Illiger, Prodr. Syst. Mamm., p. 73 (1811, pt.). _Stenops gracilis_, Van der Hoeven, Tijdschr., Nat. Ges., xi., p. 39 (1844); Kelaart, Prod. Fauna Zeyl., p. 9 (1852).