RACCONIGI, a town of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Cuneo, 24 m. S. of Turin, and 31 m. N. of Cuneo by rail, 837 ft.
above sea-level. Pop. (1931) 8,643 (town and the commune).
It has a royal château (1570), which since 190o has been the sum mer residence of the king of Italy, RACCOON or RACOON, the typical representative of a family (Procyonidae) of American arboreal CARNIVORA (q.v.).
The raccoon has a curious habit of washing its food in water be fore eating it. The typical rac coon (Procyon lotor) is a thickly built animal about the size of a badger, with a coat of long coarse greyish-brown hairs, short ears, and a bushy black-and-white ringed tail. It extends over the whole of the United States zd stretches on the west northwards to Alaska and southwards into Central America, where it attains its maximum size. The following notes are from Dr. C. Hart Merriam's The Mammals of the Adirondacks:— "Raccoons are omnivorous beasts and feed upon mice, small birds, birds' eggs, turtles and their eggs, frogs, fish, crayfish, molluscs, insects, nuts, fruits, maize, and sometimes poultry. Excepting alone the bats
and flying-squirrels, they are the most strictly nocturnal of all our mammals. . . . They haunt the banks of ponds and streams, and find much of their food in these places, such as crayfish, mussels, and fish, al though they are unable to dive and pursue the latter under water. . . . They are good swimmers. . . . The raccoon hibernates during the severest part of the winter. . . . It makes its home high up in the hollow of some large tree, preferring a dead limb to the trunk itself.
• • • From four to six young are . . . born at a time. . . . The young remain with the mother about a year." The South-American species, P. cancrivorus, the crab-eating raccoon, differs by its shorter fur, larger size, more powerful teeth, and other minor characters. It extends over the whole of South America, as far south as the Rio Negro.