The coati can climb quite as well as the racoons and spends most of its life in the trees, seldom coming down to the ground except to feed or to drink. It has a queer way of descending a tree with its head downward, turning the hinder feet around in such a way that it can hook its claws into the little crevices in the bark. During the daytime it is generally fast asleep, using its long bushy tail partly as a pillow and partly as a blanket. But almost immediately after sunset it wakes up and begins to scamper about among the branches with the most wonderful activity, stopping every now and then to rob a bird's nest, or to poke its snout into a hole in search of insects. The coati is about a yard in length, nearly half of which belongs to the tail. In color it is chestnut brown, with black ears and legs, while the tail has black and brownish yellow rings. THE KINKAJOU Only one more member of the bear tribe remains to be mentioned, and that is the very curious kinkajou, which is found in the forests of South and Central America. It is about as big as a cat, with very woolly fur of a light brown color, and a very long tail. This tail is prehensile, like that of a spider-monkey, and the animal never seems quite happy unless the tip is coiled round a branch. And if you make a pet of it, and carry it about in your arms, it will always try to coil its tail round one of your wrists. It has a very odd tongue, too, so round and long that it looks almost like a worm. The animal can poke this tongue into the cells of a honeycomb, in order to lick out the honey, or use it in plucking fruit which would otherwise be out of its reach. And it descends the trunks of trees head first, just as the coati does. CHAPTER XII THE SEAL TRIBE We now come to a group of carnivorous or flesh-eating mammals which live in the water--the seals. People sometimes think that these creatures are fishes; but that is quite a mistake, for their blood is as hot as our own, and they breathe by means of nostrils and lungs just as we do, and not by means of gills, like the fishes. Then they have not fins to keep their bodies upright in the water as fishes have, neither do they swim by means of their tails; and their bodies are covered with fur, not with scales. HOW SEALS SWIM So, you see, seals are very different from fishes, although they spend almost the whole of their lives in the water. But nature has formed them in such a way that they can swim and dive quite as well as the fishes can. Yet it is difficult to see how they do so. If you watch a tame seal swimming about in a large tank of water, you will see that it glides smoothly and swiftly and easily and gracefully along, rising and diving and turning with the most perfect ease; but _how_ it swims you will not be able to tell at all.