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M O N K E V. 



least according to Humboldt, a great destroyer of 

 birds ; and it is mainly for the capture of these that 

 it preserves the elasticity of its back by the curve 

 which that assumes when it is reposing. It is not a 

 silent animal, but utters several sounds, the different 

 affections accompanying which are not very clearly 

 understood. Its ordinary cry has been expressed by 

 the syllables muh-muh, louder than the size of the 

 animal would lead one to suppose, and resembling a 

 sort of miniature of the nightly cry of the jaguar. 

 The jaguar is the tiger of Europeans and their de- 

 scendants in that part of America ; and, accordingly, 

 the Creoles on the Upper Orinoco call the dourou- 

 couli, the " lite-tiger." It has also a mewing cry 

 (e-i-aou), which will be readily perceived to bear 

 some resemblance to the mewing of a cat ; and it has 

 also a very disagreeable guttural growl which it utters 

 when irritated, and which describers have endea- 

 voured to express by a repetition of the snarling syl- 

 lables quer-quer. This animal is exceedingly difficult 

 to tame, even in its native country, and the whole of 

 the nocturnal quadrumana of America are so delicate, 

 that they cannot be preserved alive out of their native 

 habitat without the greatest difficulty. As their cries 

 would lead one to suppose, they are snarling and irrita- 

 ble animals ; and when they are exasperated, the 

 skin of the throat becomes inflated, and the hair 

 stands on end. Such are a few particulars respecting 

 the best known of this very singular genus of ani- 

 mals ; and we must content ourselves with merely 

 mentioning the names of the other two species. 



Cat-faced Night Monkey (N.felinus). All the three 

 species may be regarded as being a good deal cat- 

 faced ; and we are not aware that this is more so 

 than any of the rest. Its covering is described as 

 being greyish-brown on the upper part and reddish 

 on the under, with the last half of the tail black, and 

 a space round the eyes white. The ravs or bars 

 which so distinctly mark the forehead ot the other 

 species, do not appear to exist in this or in the 

 following. 



Howling Night Monkey (N. vociferans). This is 

 named from its nocturnal din, in which, as we have 

 seen, the species first mentioned also takes no incon- 

 siderable share. The colour of the upper part of 

 this one is more inclining to red than that of the 

 former ; and it is uniform over the whole body and 

 head, and only a third, and not a half of the tail 

 toward the point is black ; still they may be both 

 differently coloured varieties of one and the same 

 species. Hitherto they have been found in Brazil 

 only ; and little has been recorded of them even 

 there. 



PITHECIA the Saki?. This genus, like the others, 

 was long blended in the common class of South 

 American quadrumana ; and some naturalists have 

 proposed to apply to it the generic name of Cebus ; 

 but as that name is more appropriately applied to the 

 hairy-tailed sapajous, as marking their chief distinc- 

 tion from the naked-tailed ones, it is rather objection- 

 able. The vulgar name of this genus is fox-tailed 

 monkeys, because the tails are, generally speaking, 

 formed into a sort of brush, with the hair much longer 

 in the middle part than at the root. They are night 

 monkeys as well as the former. They admit of sub- 

 division into two genera, though the chief distinctions 

 of these consist in the length of the tails ; the other 

 structures and the habits being very much alike in 

 both. Though called night apes as well as the for- 



mer genus, they are much less so in reality, and arc 

 to be considered rather as dawn and twilight animal* 

 than animals of the darkness of night. In this respect 

 they resemble the common fox, with whom the early 

 morning is the busy time, at least in paying his atten- 

 tions to the farm-yard, though, where foxes are nu- 

 merous, they may be heard barking for the greater 

 part of the night, at least in certain states of the 

 weather. It is curious to find a correspondence of 

 habit, at least in so far as time is concerned, between 

 animals of which the tails are the only parts that 

 have any traceable resemblance to each other. The 

 sakis make a much nearer approach in some particu- 

 lars, especially in the form of their bodies, than they 

 do to the genus placed intermediate between them iu 

 the system ; but the tails not being prehensile at 

 once distinguishes them from the sapajous ; and the 

 produced hair, forming a fox-like brush, equally dis- 

 tinguishes them from the sagouins. They have thirty- 

 six teeth in all, and the incisors of the upper jaw are 

 a little peculiar in their form. They are rounded at 

 their cutting edges, sloped on their external surfaces, 

 and hollowed in their internal, so that they bear some 

 resemblance to little goudges. The canines have 

 very sharp points ; and of the grinders, those which 

 may be called the false ones are formed into points, 

 while the true grinders have blunf crowns, whereby 

 the animals are distinguished from the ouistitis, and 

 pointed out as living more on vegetables, and less 

 upon insect food. Their claws also differ very much 

 from the demi-talons of the ouistitis, which last may 

 be regarded as to some extent prehensile instruments. 

 The external characters are : the head round, the 

 muzzle short, the facial angle nearly sixty degrees, 

 the ears of mean size and bordered, the tail shorter 

 than the body and furnished with long puffy hair, 

 and all the feet with five toes, having short claws a 

 little crooked. The sakis inhabit the very depths of 

 the American forests, and spend the greater part of 

 the day, and always the hot time of it, in repose. 

 They are social, but their communities seldom consist 

 of more than seven or eight individuals. They are 

 great destroyers both of wild bees and of their honey ; 

 and it is said that some of the more powerful speciea 

 follow them to share this description of food, or to 

 take it altogether from the sakis. There are several 

 species which we shall very briefly notice. 



Red-betted Saki (P. rufiventer). This is the fox- 

 tailed monkey, and the night ape of Buffon. It has 

 a round face, and a short muzzle, without any beard ; 

 its nostrils are oblique and large, and its eyes very 

 large. It is covered over with very long hair, which 

 is as much as three inches long about the middle part 

 of the tail. Its colour is brown mottled with reddish 

 on the upper part, and passing into red on the belly. 

 The individual hairs are brown at the roots, and annu- 

 lated with red and brown toward the extremity ; the 

 forehead is furnished with a sort of toupee of diverg- 

 ing hairs ; the hair on the hands and feet is very 

 short ; and that of the face is thin, soft, and fine, and 

 of a tawny colour. This species is very common in 

 the forests of the interior of Guiana. 



The Yarke Saki (P. leucocephala) has sometimes 

 been confounded with the former, though the external 

 appearances are different. The head and body are 

 about ten or eleven inches in length, covered with 

 brown fur, very long on the upper part, but much 

 shorter on the under, while that on the head is very 

 short. The forehead, the cheeks, and the lower jaw, 



