Pick from the Past
Natural History, September 1937
José—1937
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ate in December, 1936, beginning the third year of our association, I found José in surprisingly good condition. The bare, parchmenty areas, marking the wounds received in his 1936 campaign, had become filled with a new growth of hair, and his pelage generally looked sleek and well-cared for. The nails on his left forefoot seemed to have become reattached to their normal places. A life of ease and unlimited bananas had destroyed the lines of his youth, but he appeared to be in good spirits, his self-confidence, last spring near the vanishing paint, had returned, he showed no fear of any other coati, even took the aggressive and drove away some males whose presence was undesired. But he lacked the snap of younger males, his remaining eye had lost its sparkle, and his tail that rolling, twisting, curling motion so expressive of the devil that lurks in a fully charged coati.
Renewing Friendly Ties
His food-supply at the kitchen door being cut off José at once looked to me for his daily bananas, and the relations which had been discontinued since the preceding April were soon reestablished. At first he came to my front, or kitchen-side door, but he would enter and follow me through the house or go around outside to his former feeding-place on the balcony in the rear.
At once I discovered that José’s wire-climbing days were passed. He might mount the balcony railing for a banana and he even pulled at the string attached to the feeding tray, but it was a half-hearted attempt and he much preferred to take his bananas from my hand and have them peeled for him; and in the belief that his record as a gymnast had won him honorable retirement from further exhibitions of agility, I asked him to ascend only to my knee.
My intimacy with José and his confidence in me now reached their highest point. He permitted me to stroke his back. There was a time when I should have expected this familiarity to be actively resented, or at least to arouse the impulses of uncontrolled fear, but, beyond an instinctive recoil from so novel an experience, he showed no dislike of it. Indeed, there were times, possibly when I rubbed an itching bite he could not reach himself, when he seemed to welcome my touch. But my hand was equally liable to find some sore spot, and how was he to tell that my intentions were always of the best?
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The weeks passed without incident. I was interested in other things and took José for granted. The time was now approaching when, José’s history showed, there would be a change in his nature and in response to the demands of his sex cycle he would go to the forest to seek a mate. In 1935 he had disappeared on January 29; in 1936, on January 27. When would he be called in 1937? My journal records him as coming for food at 6 p.m. on January 26, but he was absent the following day which proved to be the day of his going. In three years, therefore, there was a variation of only three days in the beginning of his annual mating expedition, an indication of the remarkable regularity of his physiological cycle.
In concluding my record of José for 1936 I had ventured to predict that under the care of his friends at the laboratory he would survive until the mating season of 1937 forced him again afield when he would succumb to the attack of a younger and better armed rival. The application of the law of the “survival of the fittest” calls for the defeat of the animal whose powers are below the average, and José, assuredly, could no longer be numbered. among the “fittest.” Handicapped by the loss of his right eye he had done remarkably well to survive the season of 1936, but the injury in that year to his left foot was equally serious. A coati’s claws can inflict terrible wounds. Normally they are used for digging, climbing and holding his food, but in combat they are his most effective weapons. With them he can tear such openings in his rival’s body as José himself received during the campaigns of the two preceding years. The fact that José had detached all five claws of his left forefoot in 1935 is indication of the hard usage he had given this member. Some pointed one way, some another, some were loose and hanging and it seemed impossible without an operation, to restore them to their original position. This, however, was out of the question. The foot evidently gave José much pain and an attempt to handle it would have been violently resented. But although in some ways the claws had approximately resumed a normal position I had small faith in the strength of their attachment and hence in the value of the foot as a weapon.
In addition to his physical defects José was unquestionably out of training. In place of the life which makes a coati one of the most active and hardy of forest animals and induces him to find one meal at the end of a tarantula’s burrow and the next at the top of an almendro tree, he had been living almost exclusively on bananas and was, therefore, deprived of both exercise and a hardening, varied diet.
So the odds seemed against José and we anxiously waited his return. Personally, I believed that we would never see him again. In 1935 he had returned on February 11; in 1936, on February 10, after absences, therefore, of respectively thirteen and fourteen days.
A Fleeting Glimpse
Nine days passed when at noon on February 4 José, at full speed, crossed the clearing in front of the laboratory. No one followed him and he evidently was on a trail. I called his name sharply and he apparently recognized it, for he stopped and, sniffing the ground, began to retrace his steps; but he paid no direct attention to me or to the peeled banana I offered him, and soon disappeared in search of whatever he was hunting.
This was a very different José from the semi-domesticated animal that had daily come to me for food. Once or twice I thought that he was about to yield to the combined influences of my call and the banana, but whatever obsessed him was a stronger lure. Apparently, he was still controlled by the influences that had induced him to go to the forest. He seemed alert and active and prepared for whatever he might encounter. Beyond a bare patch on the left flank I could not observe that he had been injured.
It was February 13 before I saw José again. He was in the distance, crossing the clearing near the lake and seemed to be still concerned with his own affairs. On the 18th, however, he came to my door and this date I enter as the official time of his return. But he was still quite unlike the José that had left us on January 27. Before I could reach him he started for the forest. I followed quickly with a banana. He took one piece of it but his mouth appeared to be badly injured and he ate with difficult. He looked very thin and worn and seemed to be in a thoroughly exhausted condition; but beyond the trouble with his mouth I could see no serious wounds. Rest and seclusion seemed to be his chief wants but for some unknown reason he sought them in the forest rather than with us. The wild and tamed in him seemed to be at odds, with the former in control.
José’s Last Days
We now saw José at intervals but he did not shake off his feral spirit fully and reacquire confidence in us until February 28. My journal for that date reads: “José came at 8 o’clock this morning and stayed. He shows no major external injuries but has many minor bruises and is evidently tick and red bug ridden, for he scratches himself constantly, sometimes with both forepaws at once. It is in his actions that he differs most markedly from the José of a month ago. He seems drugged. He does not respond to his name, takes a banana reluctantly, eats slowly and awkwardly, the wound at the base of the right side of his mouth evidently interfering with his mastication. Most of the time with hung head he sits dejectedly, moving only to scratch, or crawling beneath my bed to sleep. I cannot diagnose his case satisfactorily, but beyond question he feels badly and is in poorer condition than when his wounds were more obvious. Possibly he may have been hurt internally, possibly he has over exerted himself. In any event, he is in bad shape.”
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On former occasions José had occupied a corner beneath my cot for an hour or more. Now he apparently decided to make my home his. There were no other coatis about the laboratory and no need, therefore, for protection from others of his kind. But a dry shelter, free from attack of insects, other than those that had already taken possession of him, with an unfailing supply of food for the asking, seemed more desirable than the forest and he was prepared to “go human.” I was more than willing to share my quarters with him during the day, but there was not quite room enough for us both during the night. I had, therefore, to tell him that while I closed at five, the balcony was at his disposal for the night. But he preferred the forest and disappeared until the following morning. Then, sometimes as early sunrise, I heard his padding footsteps on the balcony floor and, opening my door, found his pathetic, cowering figure waiting for food and the shelter of the underside of my bed. The slanting rays of the sun reached him there and with their aid I photographed José in his post-breakfast nap. Sleep and more sleep was his chief desire. At tines he slept so soundly that he seemed to have expired. At the best he showed little interest in life and it was clear that he was daily losing his grip on it.
His last visit was made March 31. For the succeeding two weeks bananas were always awaiting him on my balcony but they were uncalled for. How his end came we will doubtless never know. Probably he crawled into one of his forest retreats to sleep and never awoke. We should like to have marked the resting-place of his battle-scarred body with some tribute to the intelligence which led him to accept favoring changes in his environment and place his trust in the good-will of man.