90 THE ARAGUATO. 
remarkable, that once when she was ill, her jetty coat became interspersed with hairs of 
a red tint, imparting an unpleasant rusty hue to her furry mantle. 
She is expected to reach England in the course of the summer, and it may chance 
that the public will one day have the opportunity of studying the biography of Sally the 
spider monkey. 
THE ANIMAL which is engraved on the next page, is an example of the celebrated 
group of Howirne Monkeys, or ALOUATTES as they are termed by some naturalists, whose 
strange customs have been so often noticed by travellers, and whose reverberating cries 
rend their ears. Little chance is there that the Howling Monkeys should ever fade 
from the memory of any one who has once suffered an unwilling martyrdom from their 
mournful yells. 
Several species of Howling Monkeys are known to science, of which the ARAGUATO 
as it is called in its own land, or the Ursine How er as it is popularly named in this 
country, is, perhaps, the commonest and most conspicuous. It is larger than any of the 
New World monkeys which have hitherto been noticed ; its length being very nearly 
three feet when it is fully grown, and the tail reaching to even a greater length. 
The colour of the fur is a rich reddish-brown, or rather bay, enlivened by a golden 
lustre when a brighter ray of hght than usual plays over its surface. The beard which 
so thickly decorates the chin, throat, and neck, is of a deeper colour than that of the 
body. 
Few animals have deserved the name which they bear so well as the Howling 
Monkeys. Their horrid yells are so loud, that they can be heard plainly although the 
animals which produce them are more than a mile distant ; and the sounds that issue from 
their curiously formed throats are strangely simulative of the most discordant outecries of 
various other animals—the jaguar being one of the most favourite subjects for imitation. 
Throughout the entire night their dismal ululations resound, persecuting the ears of the 
involuntarily wakeful traveller with their oppressive pertinacity, and driving far from his 
wearied senses the slumber which he courts, but courts in vain. As if to give greater 
energy to the performance, and to worry their neighbours as much as possible, the 
Aracuatos have a fashion of holding conversations, in which each member does his best 
to overpower the rest. 
A similar custom is in vogue with many of the African and Asiatic monkeys, but 
with this difference. The above-mentioned animals certainly lift up their voices together, 
but then, each individual appears to be talking on his own account, so that the sound, 
although it is sufficiently loud to affect a lstener’s ears most unpleasantly, is disjointed 
and undecided. 
But the Howlers give forth their cries with a consentaneous accord, that appears to be 
the result of discipline rather than of instinct alone. 
Indeed, the natives assert that in each company, one monkey takes the lead, and 
acting as toast-master, or as conductor of an orchestra, gives a signal which is followed 
by the rest of the band. The result of the combined voices of these stentorian animals 
may be imagined. And when the effect of this melancholy and not at all musical inter- 
mittent bellow is heightened by the silence of night and the darkness that hangs over 
the midnight hours in the dense forests, it may easily be supposed, that but little sleep 
would visit the eyes of one who had not served an apprenticeship to the unearthly sounds 
that fill the night air of these regions. 
Tn order that an animal of so limited a size should be enabled to produce sounds of 
such intensity and volume, a peculiar structure of the vocal organs is necessary. 
The instrument by means of which the Howlers make “night dismal with their 
funestral wailings, is found to be the “hyoid bone,” a portion of “the form which is very 
shehtly developed in man, but very largely in these monkeys. In man, the bone in 
question gives support to the tongue and is attached to numerous muscles of the neck. 
In the Howling Monkeys it takes a wider range of duty, and, by a curious modification of 
structure, forms a bony drum which communicates with the windpipe and gives to the 
voice that powerful resonance, which has made the Alouattes famous. 
It is said by those who have been able to watch the habits of these creatures, that the 
