THE SAKIS. 187 



Capuchino." It lives in the most retired parts of the forest, 

 where the ground below it is not inundated by the river, and 

 feeds on fruits. 



It is said that this animal — unlike the next species — drinks 

 freely, always bending down on its hands and putting its mouth 

 to the surface of the water, heedless of wetting its beard and 

 indifferent to the observation of onlookers. Sir Robert Porter 

 says that he never saw it take up water in the hollow of its 

 hand, and convey it to its mouth to drink. Its voice is a weak 

 and chirping whistle, which becomes shrill and loud when the 

 animal is angry. 



A young male of this species, which died in the Zoological 

 Society's Gardens in 1882, presented an abnormal condition. 

 The peculiarity consisted, as Mr. W. A. Forbes, the late dis- 

 tinguished prosector to the Society, has pointed out in the 

 *' Proceedings," in the completely " webbed " condition of the 

 third and fourth digits of the manus (hand) on each side, 

 these two fingers being completely connected together, down 

 to their tips, by a fold of nude skin, and with their nails closely 

 apposed, though not connected along their contiguous margins. 

 The other digits of the hands, as well as those of the feet, were 

 quite normal, the webbing not extending beyond the middle of 

 the first phalanx. Mr. Forbes remarks : " The case is interest- 

 ing, partly as affording an excellent instance of an abnormal 

 condition affecting homologous parts of opposite sides in an 

 exactly similar way, and partly as showing that the lower 

 Primates are subject, occasionally, to a condition of things 

 which, as is well known, also occurs not at all rarely in Man " 



IV. THE RED-BACKED SAKI. PITHECIA CHIROPOTES. 



S>imia chiropotes^ Humb.^ Obs. Zool., i., p. 311 (181 1). 



