76 QUADRUMANA. 



The Cebid.'E are confined to South America. Their northern limit 

 is the Caribbean Sea, but tlicy are not found in any of the Islands, nor do 

 they pass the Isthmus of I'anama. To the West they are limited by the 

 chain of the Andes, on the East by the Atlantic Ocean, and South by the 

 twenty-fifth degree of latitude. 



The Apes of America are exclusivel\' arboreal, and the primeval 

 forest is their natural home. They prefer well-watered regions. They 

 never descend to the earth except in extreme need ; even when they drink 

 they climb on some bending branch which droops into a stream. Some 

 of those apes can traverse hundreds of miles and never set foot on 

 ground. The forest gives them all they want, buds and fruits, insects 

 and birds' eggs, young birds and honey. 



Most species are active by day, some are genuine night-animals. 

 They all are timid and shy and cannot distinguish with the sagacity of 

 Old World Apes between real and imaginary danger. Hence they 

 flee from everything unusual. They are weak, and only able to defend 

 themselves from small beasts of prey. 



In captivity they are docile and affectionate in youth, cunning and 

 malicious in old age. Maternal affection is very strong in the females. 

 They bear one or two young ones, and nurse, tend and guard them with 

 that care and devotedness which always excite our admiration and 

 esteem. 



They do little damage to mankind ; their home is usually remote from 

 the operations of man, and those which do levy toll on the plantations are 

 merciful in their exactions. Men himt them for the sake of their flesh 

 ant! tlicir skin; the natives slay tliem by hundreds, using bows and 

 arrows, or the blowpipe, by which they can project their poisoned darts 

 that kill with a scratch, over a hundred feet. With the same weapon the 

 Indians capture them. " If the Arecunas," writes Schomburgk, " wish to 

 tame an old obstinate ape, they dip their dart in weakened Wurari 

 poison. When the creature falls down, the wound is sucked, the animal 

 buried in the earth up to the neck, and a strong solution of some salt- 

 petre-bearing earth or of sugarcane-juice is poured over him. When the 

 patient shows signs of revival he is taken out and wrapped like a child 

 in swaddling-clothes. In this straight-jacket his drink for some days is 

 cane-juice and his food is seasoned with Cayenne pepper, and boiled in 

 saltpetre water. If this heroic treatment does not answer, he is hung up 

 in the smoke. His temper then improves, his eyes become beseeching, 



