184 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE PYGMY MONKEY. 1 



By E. OUSTALET. 



THERE was lately presented to the London Zoological Society, by 

 an engineer attached to the navigation service of the Upper 

 Amazon, a monkey, which may be regarded as one of the smallest rep- 

 resentatives of the order Quadrwnana. The animal is not so big as a 

 squirrel, its body measuring only fifteen centimetres, with a tail of about 

 the same length. The tribe to which it belongs, that of the Hapalians, 

 stands at the foot of the monkey series, at the head of which are the 

 anthropoid apes. While the latter are remarkable for a stature nearly 

 equal to that of the human species, a robust body without caudal ap- 

 pendage, and a voluminous brain with numerous convolutions, the Ha- 

 palians, on the other hand, in size do not surpass some of our Rodents. 

 The body is rather slender, but covered with a heavy coat of hair, and 

 terminated by a long tail ; the brain is almost perfectly smooth. Like 

 the Cebians, with which they constitute the Platyrrhine family, they 

 have neither callosities nor cheek-pouches, but they differ from the 

 other monkeys of the New World in the claw-like nails of all the fingers 

 except the thumbs of the posterior members, and in the teeth, which 

 number only thirty-two, the great molars being reduced to two on each 

 side of each jaw. To these characters correspond notable differences 

 in the habits and modes of life. Thus certain naturalists have supposed 

 that the Hapalians (which they designate by the not very appropriate 

 name of Arctopitheci "bear-monkeys") must be regarded as an inde- 

 pendent family, of the same rank as the families of the Platyrrhines 

 and the Catarrhines. Even though we do not adopt this opinion, we 

 are forced to admit that the Hapalians offer certain affinities with the 

 Rodents, if not in the skeleton and the dental formula, at least in the 

 gait. Like our squirrels, they are essentially arboreal, and run up -and 

 down the trunks of trees with great agility, buying their claws deep 

 into the bark. Like the squirrels, too, they are lively and alert during 

 the day, and spend the nights concealed in holes ; like them, they shel- 

 ter themselves against cold by gathering around them their bushy tails ; 

 like them, finally, they are exceedingly timid and wary, fleeing at the 

 least noise, and seeking refuge in the foliage. But here the resem- 

 blance ends : for, while the Rodents, with their strong incisors and mo- 

 lars, easily cut and bruise the hardest grains and fruits, the Hapalians, 

 whose jaws are of a different conformation, live on birds'-eggs, insects, 

 fruits, and buds. As regards intelligence, the Hapalians appear to be 

 far inferior to other monkeys, and in them the sense of touch in par- 

 ticular is poorly developed, the anterior members terminating in true 



1 Translated from the French by J. Fitzgerald, A. M. 



