Chap. Y. THE JUPUEA. 323 



very flexible towards the tip, and is used to twine 

 round branches in climbing. I did not see or hear 

 anything of this animal whilst residing on the Lower 

 Amazons, but on the banks of the Upper river, from 

 the Teffe to Peru, it appeared to be rather common. It 

 is nocturnal in its habits, like the owl-faced monkeys, 

 although, unlike them, it has a bright, dark eye. I 

 once saw it in considerable numbers, when on an excur- 

 sion with an Indian companion along the low Ygapo 

 shores of the Teffe, about twenty miles above Ega. 

 We slept one night at the house of a native family 

 living in the thick of the forest, where a festival w r as 

 going on, and there being no room to hang our ham- 

 mocks under shelter, on account of the number of 

 visitors, we lay down on a mat in the open air, near a 

 shed which stood in the midst of a grove of fruit-trees 

 and pupunha palms. After midnight, when all be- 

 came still, after the uproar of holiday-making, as I was 

 listening to the dull, fanning sound made by the wings 

 of impish hosts of vampire bats crowding round the 

 Caju trees, a rustle commenced from the side of the 

 woods, and a troop of slender, long-tailed animals were 

 seen against the clear moonlit sky, taking flying leaps 

 from branch to branch through the grove. Many of 

 them stopped at the pupunha trees, and the hustling, 

 twittering, and screaming, with sounds of falling fruits, 

 showed how they were employed. I thought, at first, 

 they were Nyctipitheci, but they proved to be Jupuras, 

 for the owner of the house early next morning caught a 

 young one, and gave it to me. I kept this as a pet animal 

 for several weeks, feeding it on bananas and mandioca- 



Y 2 



