Chap. V. TAME UAKARL 311 



villages have not succeeded in taming. I have even 

 seen young jaguars running loose about a house, and 

 treated as pets. The animals that I had, rarely became 

 familiar, however long they might remain in my pos- 

 session, a circumstance due no doubt to their being 

 kept always tied up. 



The Uakaii is one of the many species of animals 

 which are classified by the Brazilians as " mortal," or of 

 delicate constitution, in contradistinction to those which 

 are "duro," or hardy. A large proportion of the speci- 

 mens sent from Ega die before arriving at Para, and 

 scarcely one in a dozen succeeds in reaching Rio Janeiro 

 alive. It appears, nevertheless, that an individual has 

 once been brought in a living state to England, for Dr. 

 Gray relates that one was exhibited in the gardens of 

 the Zoological Society in 1849. The difficulty it has of 

 accommodating itself to changed conditions probably has 

 some connection with the very limited range or confined 

 sphere of life of the species in its natural state, its 

 native home being an area of swampy woods, not more 

 than about sixty square miles in extent, although no 

 permanent barrier exists to check its dispersal, except 

 towards the south, over a much wider space. When I 

 descended the river in 1859, we had with us a tame 

 adult Uakari, which was allowed to ramble about the 

 vessel, a large schooner. When we reached the mouth 

 of the Rio Negro, we had to wait four days whilst 

 the custom-house officials at Barra, ten miles distant, 

 made out the passports for our crew, and during this time 

 the schooner lay close to the shore, with its bowsprit 

 secured to the trees on the bank. Well, one morning, 



