Cb. VII.] SPIDER-MONKEYS. 117 



the dryer ridges. It grows to a great size, and its timber 

 is almost indestructible ; so that we used it in the con- 

 struction of all our permanent works. "White ants do 

 not eat it, nor, excepting when first cut, and before it is 

 barked, do any of the wood-boring beetles. It bears a 

 round fruit about the size of an apple, hard and heavy 

 when green, and at this time is much frequented by the 

 large yellowish-brown spider-monkey (Ateles), which 

 roams over the tops of the trees in bands of from ten 

 to twenty. Sometimes they lay quiet until I was 

 passing underneath, when, shaking a branch of the 

 nispera tree, they would send down a shower of the hard 

 round fruit ; but fortunately I was never struck by them. 

 As soon as I looked up, they would commence yelping 

 and barking, and putting on the most threatening gestures, 

 breaking off pieces of branches and letting them fall, and 

 shaking off more fruit, but never throwing anything, 

 simply Jetting it fall. Often, when on lower trees, they 

 would hang from the branches two or three together, hold- 

 ing on to each other and to the branch with their fore feet 

 and long tail, whilst their hind feet hung down, all the 

 time making threatening gestures and cries. Sometimes 

 a female would be seen carrying a young one on its back, 

 to which it clung with legs and tail, the mother making 

 its way along the branches, and leaping from tree to tree, 

 apparently but little encumbered with its baby. A large 

 black and white eagle is said to prey upon them, but I 

 never saw one, although I was constantly falling in with 

 troops of the monkeys. Don Francisco Velasquez, one 

 of our officers, told me that one day he heard a monkey 

 crying out in the forest for more than two hours, and at 

 last, going to see what was the matter, he saw a monkey 



