CHAPTER IX. 

 THE MARMOSETS. 



THE MARMOSETS OR OUISTITIS — THE FAMILY HAPALID.^; — THE GENUS HAPALE — THE MARIKIVA — 

 THE GENUS MIDAS OR THE TAMARINS — THE PI.NCHE— THE SILKY MARMOSET — THE SAGOUIN 

 — THE DWARF MARMOSET. 



THE Hapalid.e or Marmosets are very small monkeys, which 

 differ from the true Cebid^ as well as from the Old World 

 Monkeys. The thumb is not at all opposable, and all the 

 fingers are armed with sharp claws. The great toe is very small, the 

 tail long and not prehensile. The tivo genera, Hapale containing Jiinc 

 species, and Midas, tzvcnty-four species, are pronounced by Wallace as 

 of doubtful value. They are both confined to the tropical forests of 

 South America, near the equator. 



Some naturalists regard these animals as mere genera of the pre- 

 ceding division ; others refuse them a place in the tribe of monkeys ; 

 it is, however, most convenient to treat them as a famil)- of the Ouad- 

 rumana, and as constituting an intermediate link between the Apes and 

 the Lemurs. 



The distinctions between the families previously described and the 

 present are striking and important. A Greek name, signifying " Bear 

 Apes," is sometimes given to the Marmosets, not because they resemble 

 bears, but because they have claws in the place of nails, thus approxi- 

 mating to the Carnivora. They differ from the other apes of the New 

 World in their dental formula, for they possess a set of thirty-two teeth, 

 the canines being very large and strong. The head is round, the face 

 flat, the brow flat and broad. The eyes are small, the ears large and 

 often tufted, the body slender, the limbs short. They are chiefly found 

 in Brazil, Guiana, and Peru ; two species occur in Mexico. 



