118 THE NOMTHEHN MOUNTAINS. 



monkeys must have too often to wait for these feasts till the 

 rainy season, when the woody shell rots of itself, and amuse 

 themselves meanwhile, as Humboldt describes them, in 

 rolling the fruit about, vainly longing to get their paws in 

 through the one little hole at its base. The Agoutis, however, 

 and Pacas, and other rodents, says Humboldt, have teeth and 

 perseverance to gnaw through the shell ; and when the seeds 

 are once out " all the animals of the forest, the monkeys, the 

 manaviris, the squirrels, the agoutis, the parrots, the macaws, 

 hasten thither to dispute the prey. They have all strength 

 enough to break the woody covering of the seeds ; they get 

 out the kernel and carry it to the tops of the trees. ' It is 

 their festival also,' said the Indians who had returned from 

 the nut-harvest ; and on hearing their complaints of the 

 animals you perceive that they think themselves alone the 

 legitimate masters of the forest." 



But if nature has played the poor monkeys a somewhat 

 tantalizing trick about Brazil nuts, she has been more 

 generous to them in the case of some other Lecythids,^ which 

 go by the name of monkey-pots. Huge trees like their kins- 

 folk, they are clothed in bark layers so delicate that the 

 Indians beat them out till they are as thin as satin-paper, 

 and use them as cigarette wrappers. They carry great urn- 

 shaped fruits, big enough to serve for drinking-vessels, each 



^ Lecytliis OUaris, &c. 



