194 LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 



Distriljutioii. — Brazil ; New Granada ; Venezuela ; Copataza 

 river, Ecuador; Eastern Peru, along tlie Ucayali and Huallaga 

 rivers. 



Habits.— The Red Howlers always travel in large companies, 

 keeping to the forests of the low lands and shores of the rivers. 

 " We stopped," writes Humboldt, "to observe the Howling Mon- 

 keys, which, to the number of thirty or forty, crossed the road 

 by passing in a long file from one tree to another upon the 

 horizontal and intersecting branches." On another occasion 

 the same celebrated naturalist records that '* on approaching a 

 group of trees, we perceived numerous bands of Arguatoes 

 going as in a procession from one tree to another with extreme 

 slowness. A male was followed by a great number of females, 

 several of which carried their young on their shoulders. The 

 uniformity with which the Arguatoes execute their movements 

 is extremely striking. Whenever the branches of neighbouring 

 trees do not touch, the male that leads the band suspends him- 

 self by the callous and prehensile part of his tail ; and letting 

 fall the rest of his body, swings himself till in one of his oscil- 

 lations he reaches the neighbouring branch. The whole file 

 performs the same action on the same spot. It is almost su- 

 perfluous to add how dubious is the assertion that the Argua- 

 toes and other Monkeys with prehensile tails form a sort 

 of chain, in order to reach the opposite side of a river. We 

 had opportunities, during five years, of observing thousands 

 of these animals, and for this very reason we place no confi- 

 dence in these stories." 



"The Arguatoes are sometimes accused of abandoning 

 their young, that they may be more free for flight when pur- 

 sued by Indian hunters. It is said that mothcro have been 



