Coati

“ An animal of the bigness of a rabbit, with bright red hair, and a little tail without hair. He has but two teeth in each jaw; holds his meat in his forepaws like a squirrel, and has a very remarkable cry: when he is angry, his hair stands on end, and he strikes the earth with his hind feet; and when chased, he flies to a hollow tree, whence he is expelled by smoke.—Trevoux.
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The coati is a native of Brazil, not unlike the racoon in the general form of the body, and, like that animal, it frequently sits up on the hinder legs, and in this position carries its food to its mouth. ”

“ It is chiefly used [112] for rooting about in the ground in search of worms and insects, and when the animal is drinking it always turns up the tip of its snout as far as possible, in order that it may not get wet.
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. ”

“ Such are, among mammalia—the prehensile-tailed monkeys and the marmosets, the blood-sucking bats, the coati-mundis, the peccaries, the llamas and alpacas, the chinchillas, the agoutis, the sloths, the armadillos, and the ant-eaters; a series of types more varied, and more distinct from those of the rest of the world than any other continent can boast of. ”

“ Your winter coat must necessarily be very warm, lined with fur and very thick, with a very high fur collar, which when raised—and it must always be raised—must entirely cover the ears; a fur toque is the most practical head-dress, with one’s hair done low on the forehead, as the cold is so intense that it seems to wish to penetrate like a chisel just where the nose begins, between the eyes. ”

“ The coats are very loose also, and expose the bare skin of the stomach when the wearer reaches his hands above his head.
The coats of the women differ from those of the men only in having a short tail in front, and a much longer one behind. They also have a loose bag on each shoulder, and the hood is much longer than the men wear. The women's outside coats are always made of the short hair, the same as are their ar-tee'-gee. Their trousers reach further below the knee, fit closer to the leg, and are worn with the hairy side out. Women never wear but the one pair in any weather. ”

“ The coat of the Smooth or Short-coated variety, should be very close, thick and slightly brokenhaired. In the Rough variety the coat should be dense and flat, of medium length, not woolly, rather longer on the neck, thighs and tail. Colour and markings: orange, orange and tawny, and all shades of brindle, and red; the markings should be as follows:—White muzzle, white blaze up face, the white being shaded with black, also black shadings on the ears, white collar round neck, white chest, legs and tip of tail. The body may be white with patches of any of above colours. ”

“ He said a frock coat was all right in society or among the crowned heads, but when you have to mingle with lions and elephants one minute that would snatch the tail off a coat and chew it and the next minute you are mixed up with a bunch of freaks or a lot of bareback riders or trapeze performers, you have got to compromise on a coat that will fit any climate, and not cause invidious remarks, whatever that is. ”

“ And now my coat, my beautiful coat, was caricatured too! I knew it was intended for my coat, but how shamefully caricatured! The buttons were made to look the size of dessert plates, and the whole coat appeared like the shell of a large green beetle with my face at the top. To prevent any mistakes upon the subject, the artist had written under the drawing—Bicquerot, or the Green Beetle!
Have you ever received a sudden and totally unexpected blow? If so, you know the feeling of stupefaction that follows—as if one were completely overpowered; then comes the pain which nearly makes one scream. ”

“ The loveliest coat in the world—"fumée de Londres," the salesman had called it, and in fact, it was the colour of the purple-grey smoke that ascends in solid spirals from factory chimneys. There were stripes too of silvery grey chenil which made a play-ground for lights and shadows. In shape it was like an old print of a coachman driving a four-in-hand, long with a flapping cape, and the lining was the colour of the sky when the sun has set. ”

“ The eighteen-shilling chintz great-coats, so ostentatiously put forward by nefarious tradesmen as dressing-gowns, and which resemble pattern-cards of the vegetable kingdom, are unworthy the notice of all gentlemen—of course excepting those who are so by act of Parliament. Although it is generally imagined that the coat is the principal article of dress, we attach far greater importance to the trousers, the cut of which should, in the first place, be regulated by nature’s cut of the leg. ”

“ Phalaropus Fulicarius. (Coot-like Phalarope—Gould.)
114. I think the epithet 'changeful' prettier, and, until we know what a coot is like, more descriptive, than 'coot-like'; the bird having red plumage in summer, and gray in winter, while the coot is always black. It is a little less pretty and less amiable than its sister fairy; otherwise scarcely to be thought of but as a variety, both of them being distinguished from the coot, not only by color, but by their smaller size;— (they eight inches long, it sixteen) —and by the slender beaks, the coot having a thick one, half-way to a puffin's. ”

“ I would set up such a universal hunger for fur coats that the tradesmen in Oxford Street and Regent Street would come and offer me a guinea a word to write advertisements for them.
And yet I shall not buy a fur-lined coat, and I will tell you why. A fur coat is not an article of clothing: it is a new way of life. ”

“ The word coat, meaning a garment for men for covering the upper part of the body, has been in use for centuries; but of very changeable and confusing usage, for it also constantly meant petticoat. The garment itself was a puzzle, for many years; most bewildering of all the attire which was worn by the first colonists was the elusive, coatlike over-garment called in shipping-lists, tailors’ orders, household inventories, and other legal and domestic records a doublet, a jerkin, a jacket, a cassock, a paltock, a coat, a horseman’s coat, an upper-coat, and a buff-coat. ”

“ There's something sensible about a real, unadulterated top-coat; and there's a style in the way in which they've let down the skirts, and put on the velvet collar and cuffs regardless of expense, that really quite goes to one's heart. Now I daresay the man that built that," he said, more particularly addressing the owner of the coat, "condescends to live in a village, and waste his sweetness on the desert air, while a noble field might be found for his talent in a University town. That coat will make quite a sensation in Oxford. Won't it, Charley?" ”

“ We do not appreciate the jacket as we ought, or rather we do not remember the good service it did us at Eton and Harrow—when the limbs were free and supple, and when their full activity was called into constant play, who would have thought of a coat? It was only when we began to fancy ourselves men, and to think that our claims to virility lay in the skirts of our coats, that we discarded the jacket. ”

“ The dress coat for all other officers is a single-breasted sack coat of dark blue cloth, with a standing collar, closed in front by buttons or hooks concealed by a fly, having a vertical opening on each side at the hip six inches high, the collar, front edges, bottom edge of the coat and the vertical side openings being trimmed with lustrous black mohair braid one and one-half inches wide. ”

“ The business coat should be of cloth, never completely of fur unless one's position is high enough to warrant it—and even then it should be only of one fur, instead of a combination of two or three, and made with a regard for simplicity and inconspicuousness. However, the most appropriate business coat is made of a heavy cloth, plain or fur-trimmed for winter, and light-weight, dark-colored material for the warmer days. The hat, of course, follows the general note of simplicity and is usually small and dark. ”

“ From one of the number out came a long driving coat, snowy white, light of texture, an ideal garment for a warm yet dusty summer’s day, which being fastened down the side by huge pearl buttons, displayed a degree of smartness nothing short of uncanny in an untrimmed garment. ”

“ His back was covered with a well-worn black coat, the fashion of which belonged to a period at least twelve years preceding the time of which I write. The other parts of his outward man harmonised with his coat as far as apparent age and colour went. His head was covered with a low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat; and on his nose he wore a pair of silver-mounted spectacles. To my mind he presented the picture of a poor scholar, or of gentility in ruins. The lapels of his coat were tinged a little, but only a little, with snuff; which Flee-up, or Beggar's Brown, as some call it, is very apt to do. ”

“ My coat and I live comfortably together. It has assumed all my wrinkles, does not hurt me anywhere, has moulded itself on my deformities, and is complacent to all my movements, and I only feel its presence because it keeps me warm. Old coats and old friends are the same thing. ”

“ But although the sparrows will build in the cedars of Libanus, “the house of the coot is their leader.” What is the house of the coot? The coot, as we all know, is a water bird, dwelling either among the marshes, or on the sea. It hath rarely or never a home on the shore; but in places in the midst of the waters, and thus usually in rocky islets, surrounded by the waves. We therefore understand that the rock is the fit home of the coot, it never dwelleth more securely than on the rock. ”

“ But I must point to another reason why a coat can be fitted to the same person with either a square or a sloping shoulder. A coat cut too high up at the back and at the side of the neck will have the appearance of a lower shoulder, because the coat starts higher up. At the present time the style for the shoulders is toward a square shoulder, and I think that will be the style for some time to come. Looking back to continental styles and pictures, we find all coats high up at the back and at the side of the neck, and consequently all are represented as low shoulders. ”

“ He could not move without a portmanteau or a carpet-bag full of strange clothes, instead of being contented with one good coat on his back. I never could understand why any body should want more [Pg 67] than one coat. Mine was always new, always comfortable, suited to all seasons, and fitting beautifully, having adapted itself to my growth at all stages of my life, without any attention from me. I never had any trouble with tailors, snipping and measuring, trying on and altering. My coat would dry on me too, whereas my poor master could not even jump into the river without taking his off ”

“ It is something which you can't see, but which you feel is the act of a master. Here again, then, the coot in diving is quite the moor-hen's superior. The dive of the latter bird is, as we have said, archaic. It is unpolished, and greatly wants form and style. Now, the coot is fin-footed—that is to say, the skin of the toes is extended so as to form on the interspace of each joint a thin lobe-shaped membrane. ”

“ A mouth of velvet, a leg tapered like a fine lady's finger, a coat—sir, I have seen the wonderful manufactures of Lyons. There never was silk so smooth or of so bright a gloss, as the noble creature's coat. ”

“ Tall, thin fellows, wear very high-crowned hats, with slightly-drooping brims; they wear tail coats made of frieze, and short breeches. It seems to me that it is the rich who are clothed in this way—those who at some time in their lives have been able to have a coat made for them. ”

“ In a very thorny country, a leather coat is almost essential. A blouse, cut short so as to clear the saddle, is neat, cool, and easy, whether as a riding or walking costume. Generally speaking, the traveller will chiefly spend his life in his shirt-sleeves, and will only use his coat when he wants extra warmth.
To carry a Coat.--There are two ways. The first is to fold it small and strap it to the belt. If the coat be a light one it can be carried very neatly and comfortably in this way, lying in the small of the back. ”

“ All the color of the coat seemed to gather to a soft intensity, and glow.
Eleanor More caught her breath with a little sound. “I had forgotten!” she said. “I had forgotten....!” Her face was filled with light—a look of happiness pervaded it.
Richard More glanced at her. “Ask him how much it is,” he said in a low voice to the interpreter.
The interpreter spoke the words and listened a moment and translated the answer swiftly: “Money will not buy the coat—not all the gold in all the world,” he chanted back. ”

“ A good-looking, stylish coat that’s good for summer or winter—that keeps out wind, rain or snow, a coat that everybody should have, made of fine materials for men, women and children, and sells for less than the price of an ordinary coat. ”

“ Shoes, boots, or stockings, are rarely met with, and the coats, mostly too tight and too short, make the oddest appearance imaginable; many of their wearers can scarcely move their arms, and are forced to stretch them out like the sails of a windmill, while their elbows, curious to see the world, peep through slits in the seams. ”

“ A STRICTLY TAILORED COAT for a man or boy is made in very much the same way as a strictly tailored coat for women except that the effect is even more tailored. The best tailors in New York give a well-tailored and mannish look to a coat by the methods given below.
For this style of coat it is very important to know how to baste in the canvas, face the front of the coat and put in the lining before joining the shoulder seam. Not until this has been done should the collar be basted to the coat. These are the fine points of tailoring and should be followed closely in coat-making. ”