126 LOWER AMAZONS—PARA TO OBYDOS.  Cuap. VI. 
apes. As far as we know, from living and fossil species, the New 
World has progressed no farther than the Coaita towards the pro- 
duction of a higher form of the Quadrumanous order. The tendency of 
Nature here has been, to all appearance, simply to perfect those organs 
which adapt the species more and more completely to a purely arboreal 
life ; and no nearer approach has been made towards the more advanced 
forms of anthropoid apes, which are the products of the Old World 
solely. The tail of the Coaita is endowed with a wonderful degree of 
flexibility. It is always in motion, coiling and uncoiling like the trunk 
of an elephant, and grasping whatever comes within reach. Another 
remarkable character of the Coaita is the absence of a thumb to the 
anterior hands. It is worthy of note that this strange deficiency occurs 
again in the Quadrumanous order only in the Colobi, a genus of apes 
peculiar to Africa. The Colobi, however, are not furnished with pre- 
hensile tails, and belong in all their essential characters to the Catar- 
hinge, or Old World monkeys, a group entirely distinct from the Platyr- 
hinz, or South American sub-order. The want of the thumb, therefore, 
is not a sign of near relationship between the Colobi and the Coaitds, 
but is a mere analogical character, which must have originated, in each 
case, through independent, although perhaps similar, causes. _One 
species of Coaitd has a rudiment of thumb, without a nail. The flesh of 
this monkey is much esteemed by the natives in this part of the country, 
and the Military Commandant of Obydos, Major Gama, every week 
sent a negro hunter to shoot one for his table. One day I went ona 
Coaitd hunt, borrowing a negro slave of a friend to show me the way. 
On the road I was much amused by the conversation of my companion. 
He was a tall, handsome negro, about forty years of age, with a staid, 
courteous demeanour and a deliberate manner of speaking. Strangely 
enough in a negro, he was a total abstainer from liquors and tobacco. 
He told me he was a native of Congo, and the son of a great chief or 
king. He narrated the events of a great battle between his father’s and 
some other tribe, in which he was taken prisoner and sold to the — 
Portuguese slave-dealers. When in the deepest part of the ravine we 
heard a rustling sound in the trees overhead, and Manoel soon pointed 
out a Coaité to me. There was something human-like in its appearance, 
as the lean, dark, shaggy creature moved deliberately amongst the 
branches at a great height. I fired, but unfortunately only wounded 
itin the belly. It fell with a crash, headlong, about twenty or thirty 
feet, and then caught a bough with its tail, which grasped it instan- 
taneously, and then the animal remained suspended in mid-air. Before 
I could reload it recovered itself, and mounted nimbly to the topmost 
branches, out of the reach of a fowling-piece, where we could perceive 
the poor thing apparently probing the wound with its fingers. Coaitds 
are more frequently kept in a tame state than any other kind of monkey. 
The Indians are very fond of them as pets, and the women often 
suckle them when young at their breasts. They become attached to 
their masters, and will sometimes follow them on the ground to con- 
siderable distances. I once saw a most ridiculously tame Coaita. It 
was an old female, which accompanied its owner, a trader on the-river, 
in all his voyages. By way of giving me a specimen of its intelligence 
