CACAJAO.—Pithecia Melanocephala. 
varied than those of the Cuxio. As will be seen from the accompanying engraving, 
the head is surrounded with a thick and closely-set fringe of white hair, which is rather 
short in the male, but long and drooping in the female. The top of the head is of a deep 
black, and the remainder of the body and tail is covered with very long and rather 
coarse hair of a blackish-brown. Under the chin and throat the hairs are almost entirely 
absent, and the skin is of an orange hue. 
Beside the difference of length in the facial hairs of the female Yarke, there are several 
distinctions between the sexes, which are so decided as to have caused many naturalists 
to consider the male and female to belong to different species. The hair of the female 
Yarke is decorated near the tip with several rings of a rusty brown colour, while the 
hair of the male is entirely devoid of these marks. 
The natural food of these animals is said to consist chiefly of wild bees and their 
honeycombs. Perhaps the long furry hair with which the Sakis are covered, may be 
useful for the purpose of defending them from the stings of the angry insects. On 
account of the full and bushy tail with which the members of this group are furnished, 
they are popularly classed together under the title of Fox-tailed Monkeys. 
The two animals which have just been noticed are marked by such decided peculiarities 
of form and colour that they can easily be distinguished from any other monkeys. The 
Cuxio is known by its black beard and parted hair, the Black Yarke by its dark body and 
white head-fringe, while the Cacasao is conspicuous by reason of its black head and 
short tail. 
When this animal was first discovered, it was thought that the tail had been docked 
either by some accident, or by the teeth of the monkey itself, as is the custom with so 
many of the long-tailed monkeys of the Old World. But the natives of the country 
where it lives assert that its brevity of tail is a distinctive character of the species. 
1. H 
