274 



MONKEY. 



furnished with an additional concha of fur, resembling 

 the feathered one of the owls, and this no doubt 

 improves their hearing 1 , a sense upon which they 

 necessarily depend a great deal in seeking their 

 nightly food. We can know little upon so nice a 

 point ; but it is by no means improbable that those 

 nocturnal preyers, which catch birds and other small 

 game, are led to their game by hearing it breathe. 

 The sagouina have six cheek teeth in each side of 

 both jaws. 



These are the general characters ; but there are 

 others which belong only to the genera into which 

 these animals have been divided. There are four 

 of those genera : CaHithrijc, or the sagouins properly so 

 called ; Nyctipithecus, or night apes ; Pithecia, the 

 Sakis ; and Urachiurus, comprising those American 

 monkeys which have the tails rather short. We shall 

 notice a few of the leading species in each of these. 



CALLITHRIX. The type of this genus is the 

 Saimiri of Buffon, and the squirrel monkey of common 

 language ; but some of the others differ considerably 

 from this typical one, at least in some of their charac- 

 ters. The general characters may be stated as fol- 

 lows : the head small and round ; the muzzle short ; 

 facial angle sixty degrees ; canines of mean length ; 

 the inferior incisives vertical, and not projecting, 

 and coming close up to the canines ; the ears long, 

 but unshapely ; the tail a little longer than the body, 

 and covered with short hair ; the body slender and 

 flexible, so that the animal can make its way easily 

 through small openings. In the squirrel monkey the 

 craniunr is remarkably developed ; but there are 

 some of the others which have it less so, and these 

 do not exhibit an equal degree of sagacity and re- 

 source. The eyes in all the species are of consider- 

 able size, and the orbits are completely round. In 

 the squirrel monkey there is a very remarkable de- 

 velopment of the external ear ; but the others are 

 inferior in this respect, as well as in general intelli- 

 gence. The colouring of the fur is, generally speak- 

 ing, finer in these than in any other of the handed 

 animals ; and it is worthy of remark, that in this 

 they follow the general law of the mammalia, which 

 is, the more carnivorous the animal is, its fur is the 

 more durable and the more beautifully coloured. 

 It is upon this superior beauty of the covering of 

 these animals that the generic name is founded, for 

 Callithrix means " beautiful fur." All the animals of 

 this genus are confined to the tropical parts of Ame- 

 rica ; but, though they are very numerous, their 

 habits in a state of nature are but little known, on 

 account of their spending the day in concealment, 

 and being abroad and active only during the night. 

 We may here again notice, before proceeding to an 

 enumeration of the principal species, a remarkable 

 coincidence between these American animals and 

 those Asiatic ones which appear most nearly to 

 occupy the same place in the economy of nature. 

 They are much more finely coloured, and their fur 

 is also much more glossy than that of diurnal animals 

 which are exposed to the sun in the ordinary economy 

 of their lives. We now proceed to the species. 



The Squhrel Monkey (C. Sciurca), This is one 

 of the most finely coloured of all the monkey tribe, 

 and hence it has been called by a number of names. 

 It is the aurora sapajou of some writers ; and 

 Saiwiri, which Buffon called it, is understood to be 

 the name given to it by some tribes of the Indians of 

 Guiana. On the banks of the Orinoco Humboldt 



found the general name Titi applied to it ; and there 

 have not been wanting some compilers who have 

 taken advantage of these two names, and given 

 descriptions as of two species or varieties of animals. 



The squirrel monkey is of very small size, but 

 remarkably active and very pretty. The length of 

 the body is not more than ten inches, but the tail is 

 thirteen or fourteen. The face is a sort of flesh 

 colour, with the exception of the muzzle, which is 

 dusky. The general colour of the upper part is a 

 sort of olive grey, passing into a paler tint on the 

 under part of the body, and the long hairs, which 

 form a concha round the ears. This colour extends 

 as far as the knee and elbow joints on the extremities, 

 but stops there at a regular section round the limb, 

 and all the rest is bright red, which contrasts finely 

 with the grey on the body. The grey is a colour 

 which can hardly be named, it changes so much 

 with the different ways in which the light is reflected 

 from it ; but in all the shades which it shows it is 

 very soft and pleasant to the eye. There is another 

 circumstance, in what may be called the personal 

 appearance of this species, which renders it much 

 more pleasing to look at than any of the rest, and 

 more especially than any of the apes and monkeys of 

 the eastern world. It shows no caricature or the 

 human face ; and though, philosophically speaking, 

 there is no harm or ground of offence whatever in this 

 caricature, yet it is, to some extent at least, repulsive 

 to our feelings. Now, though the features of the squir- 

 rel monkey are arranged in exactly the same manner 

 as those of the monkeys which do offend us by the 

 caricature, yet there is nothing of the caricature in 

 them. The eyes remind one of those of a cat ; and 

 the wide septum between the nostrils, together with the 

 lateral opening of these, so completely animaliscs 

 the expression, that we admire it as an animal with- 

 out mixing up with it any comparison of mankind. 

 Besides this, the squirrel monkey is a good-natured 

 and playful animal, and one which was kept for some 

 time in the managerie at Paris was decidedly a 

 favourite. It seems, however, that the animal is 

 easily excited, and that with it the transition from the 

 expresion of joy to that of sorrow is as brief as in a 

 child. When affected by strong passion its eyes fill 

 with tears ; and it does not appear that with any 

 ordinary treatment it is ever angry. In a state of 

 nature these animals live in numerous troops, and 

 feed in great part upon insects, though they also eat 

 fruits and small birds. To larger animals they are 



