CHAr. III. MARMOSET MONKEYS. 93 



materials — stones, bricks, mortar, or planks. I found 

 they were chiefly slaves, who, after their hard day's 

 work, were contributing a little towards the construction 

 of their church. The materials had all been purchased 

 by their own savings. The interior was finished about 

 a year afterwards, and is decorated, I thought, quite as 

 superbly as the other churches which were constructed, 

 with far larger means, by the old religious orders more 

 than a century ago. Annually, the negi'oes celebrate 

 the festival of Nossa Senhora do Rosario, and generally 

 make it a complete success. 



I will now add a few more notes which I have accu- 

 mulated on the subject of the natural history, and 

 then we shall have done, for the present, with Para and 

 its neighbourhood. 



I have akeady mentioned that monkeys were rare in 

 the immediate vicinity of Para. I met with three 

 species only in the forest near the city ; they are shy 

 animals, and avoid the neighbourhood of towns, where 

 they are subject to much persecution by the inhabitants, 

 who kill them for food. The only kind which I saw 

 frequently was the little Midas ursulus, one of the 

 Marmosets, a family peculiar to tropical America, and 

 differing in many essential points of structure and 

 habits from all other apes. They are small in size, and 

 more like squirrels than true monkeys in their manner 

 of climbing. The nails, except those of the hind 

 thumbs, are long and claw-shaped like those of squirrels, 

 and the thumbs of the fore extremities, or hands, are 



