There is a skin of one of these animals preserved in the royal cabinet, which when transmitted to us was very young; it was a male, and measured from the nose to the origin of the tail seventeen inches; the tail rather more than fifteen inches and a half, and which was of a greyish colour, scaly, and naked, gradually tapering to the point. He was about six inches and a half high. He was very short, and at a distance much resembled a terrier, his head being considerably like that of a dog. His eyes were small, the edges of the eyebrows black, and above the eyes there are hairs more than an inch long: he has similar hairs near his ears, and his whiskers were an inch and a half long, and black. He had a large crooked canine tooth on each side the upper jaw, which reached below the under. His ears were brown, naked, and round at the ends. His hair on the body woolly, of a dirty white at the bottom, and dark brown at the ends, which is intermixed with long coarse black hairs; the latter increase in length upon the thighs and spine of the back, upon the last of which they are so long as to form a kind of mane from the middle of it to the tail. On the sides and belly the hair is of a yellowish white, inclining more to yellow on the shoulders, thighs, neck, breast and head, mixed in some places with brown; and the legs and feet of a blackish brown. There are five toes on each foot; they are a little bent like those of a rat, the thumb alone being straight; the latter on the hind feet is broad, thick, and at a distance from the toes, as in apes, but on the fore-feet it is not separate from them; and the thumbnails are flat, while those on the other toes are crooked, and extend beyond the points. I have been assured by M. de la Borde that these animals are very common in the marshy places at Cayenne, and of whom he speaks in the following terms: "These animals are very dexterous in climbing trees, upon which they remain much longer than upon the ground, especially in day-time. They have very fine teeth, and defend themselves from the dogs. Their principal food is crabs, and yet they are always fat. If they cannot get the crabs out of the holes with their feet, they then make use of their tails, as a kind of hook; but the crabs sometimes lay hold of it, and make the animal cry out; his cry resembles that of a man, and is heard at a great distance, tho' its common voice is like the grunting of a pig. The females bring forth in the hollows of old trees, and generally have four or five young at a time. The natives of the country eat their flesh, which is not unlike that of the hare. They are easily tamed, and then are fed in the houses like dogs and cats, with any kind of victuals; from which it is certain that their taste for crabs is not exclusive."