i 4 8 APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS 



of the woods. The good-natured Franciscan monk, who accompanied us, used to 

 say, when apprehensive of a storm at night, ' May Heaven grant a quiet night both 

 to us and to the wild beasts of the forest !' " 



In connection with this subject, we may mention that a subsequent traveler, the 

 late Mr. Bates, when on the Tapajos River, writes: " I heard for the first, and al- 

 most the only time, the uproar of life at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having 

 witnessed towards the source of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of 

 the larger rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank beneath the 

 trees, after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of 

 blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the other about a 

 furlong distant, filled the echoing forest with their dismal roaring. ' ' 



We have already mentioned the circumstance that a European traveler on one 

 occasion supped on roast baboon ; and we may here call attention to the fact that in 

 Humboldt' s time monkey flesh formed a by no means inconsiderable portion of the 

 food of the natives of certain parts of South America, at least on particular occa- 

 sions. Humboldt tells us that when his party was traveling in Ecuador, and had 

 arrived at Esmeraldas, they found a native festival in progress. And in the room 

 where the feast was held, they observed numbers of large roasted monkeys (of what 

 species we are not informed), blackened by smoke, and arranged round the walls. 

 These monkeys were bent into a sitting posture, with the head generally resting on 

 the long and skinny arms, and had been roasted by being placed on a grating of very 

 hard wood over a clear fire. Humboldt observes that on seeing the natives devour 

 an arm or leg of one of these roasted monkeys, it was difficult not to believe that 

 this habit of eating animals so closely resembling man in their physical organization 

 had, to a certain degree, contributed to diminish among these people the horror 

 of cannibalism. 



THE SAPAJOUS, OR CAPUCHIN MONKEYS 

 Genus Cebus 



The long and prehensile tailed monkeys so commonly seen in menageries, and 

 known respectively as sapajous or capuchin monkeys, and spider-monkeys, may be 

 regarded as the typical representatives of the family Cebidce ; and, together with two 

 other genera, constitute a group which can be easily recognized, and as easily distin- 

 guished from all their cousins. With the exception of the howlers, of which more 

 anon, this group of monkeys is indeed the only one furnished with prehensile tails ; 

 and, altogether apart from the question of voice, and the presence of certain struc- 

 tures connected therewith, all its members differ from the howlers by their rounded 

 heads and the nearly vertical plane of the face. 



The sapajous may at once be distinguished from the other three genera included 

 in this group by the circumstance that their tails, which are comparatively stout 

 and of only moderate length, have no naked part on the lower surface of the ex- 

 tremity. In this respect they are not so perfectly adapted for the purpose of pre- 



