50 PARA Cuap. III. 
manners, these sma!! monkeys resemble the higher apes far more than 
they do any Rodent animal with which I am acquainted. 
On the Upper Amazons I once saw a tame individual of the Midas 
leoninus, a species first described by Humboldt, which was still more 
playful and intelligent than the one just described. ‘This rare and 
beautiful little monkey is only seven inches in length, exclusive of the 
tail. It is named leoninus on account of the long brown mane which 
depends from the neck, and which gives it very much the appearance of 
a diminutive lion. In the house where it was kept, it was familiar with 
every one ; its greatest pleasure seeming to be to climb about the bodies 
of different persons who entered. ‘The first time I went in, it ran across 
the room straightway to the chair on which I had sat down, and climbed 
up to my shoulder ; arrived there, it turned round and looked into my 
face, showing its little teeth, and chattering, as though it would say, 
“Well, and how do you do?” It showed more affection towards its 
master than towards strangers, and would climb up to his head a dozen 
times in the course of an hour, making a great show every time of 
searching there for certain animalcula. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire 
relates of a species of this genus, that it distinguished between different 
objects depicted on an engraving. M. Audouin showed it the portraits 
of a cat and a wasp: at these it became much terrified ; whereas, at the 
sight of a figure of a grasshopper or beetle, it precipitated itself on the 
picture, as if to seize the objects there represented. 
Although monkeys are now rare in a wild state near Para, a great 
number may be seen semi-domesticated in the city. The Brazilians are 
fond of pet animals. Monkeys, however, have not been known to breed 
in captivity in this country. I counted, in a short time, thirteen different 
species, whilst walking about the Parad streets, either at the doors or 
windows of houses, or in the native canoes. ‘Two of them I did not meet 
with afterwards in any other part of the country. One of these was the 
well-known Hapale Jacchus, a little creature resembling a kitten, banded 
with black and gray all over the body and tail, and having a fringe of 
long white hairs surrounding the ears. It was seated on the shoulder of 
a young mulatto girl, as she was walking along the street, and I was told 
had been captured in the island of Marajo. The other was a species of 
Cebus, with a remarkably large head. It had ruddy-brown fur, paler on 
the face, but presenting a blackish tuft on the top of the forehead. 
In the wet season serpents are common in the neighbourhood of 
Para. One morning, in April, 1849, after a night of deluging rain, the 
lamplighter, on his rounds to extinguish the lamps, knocked me up to 
show me a boa-constrictor he had just killed in the Rua St. Antonio, 
not far from my door. He had cut it nearly in two with a large knife, 
as it was making its way down the sandy street. Sometimes the native 
hunters capture boa-constrictors alive in the forest near the city. We 
bought one which had been taken in this way, and kept it for some time 
in a large box under our verandah. ‘This is not, however, the largest 
or most formidable serpent found in the Amazons region. It is far 
inferior, in these respects, to the hideous Sucuruji, or Water Boa 
(Eunectes murinus), which sometimes attacks man ; but of this I shall 
have to give an account in a subsequent chapter. 
