404 PRIMATES APES AND LEMURS 



The Sakis (Pithecia) Monkeys are an interesting group, some- 

 times called " Fox-tailed Monkeys " from the full bushy tail with 

 which they are furnished. Bates gives the following account of 

 his first sight of the Scarlet-faced Saki : 



" Early one sunny morning in the year 1855, 1 saw in the streets 

 of Ega a number of Indians carrying on their shoulders down to 

 the port, to be embarked on the Upper Amazon steamer, a large 

 cage, made of strong lianas, some twelve feet in length and five in 

 height, containing a dozen monkeys of the most grotesque appear- 

 ance. Their bodies (about eighteen inches in height, exclusive of 

 limbs) were clothed from neck to tail with very long, straight, and 

 shining whitish hair. Their heads were nearly bald, owing to the 

 very short crop of thin grey hairs, and their faces glowed with the 

 most vivid scarlet hue. As a finish to their striking physiognomy, 

 they had bushy whiskers of a sandy colour, meeting under the 

 chin, and reddish-yellow eyes. The scarlet-faced monkey lives 

 in forests which are inundated during a great part of the year. It 

 is never known to descend to the ground ; the shortness of its 

 tail is therefore no sign of terrestrial habits, as it is in the macaques 

 and baboons of the Old World." 



The Howlers (Mycetes) are the largest of the Monkeys of the 

 New World, some being nearly three feet in length, without count- 

 ing the long, prehensile tail ; they have movable thumbs on their 

 hands, a hairless space underneath the tip of the wonderful tail, 

 and a peculiar formation of the vocal apparatus which enables 

 these Monkeys to produce the extraordinary far-reaching yells 

 and howlings for which they are famous. In describing the Red 

 Howler, Waterton states that " nothing can sound more dreadful 

 than its nocturnal howlings. While lying in your hammock in 

 those gloomy and unmeasurable wilds you hear him howling at 

 intervals from eleven o'clock at night until daybreak. You would 

 suppose that half the wild beasts of the forest were collecting for 

 the work of carnage." Salvin estimated the howling voice to 

 carry a distance of quite two miles through the forest, and " when 

 the sound came over the Lake of Yzabel unhindered by trees, a 

 league would be more like the distance at which the cry would 

 be heard." 



The Capuchin (Cebus) Monkeys are probably the most familiar 

 of the South American tribes, for they are more frequently than 



