26 ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



ence of a troop of yelling children and yelping curs with 

 the leonine calmness of a mastiff among a swarm of 

 Skye terriers. 



His intrepidity seems to refute the favorite argument 

 of the anti-vegetarians, for the chacma subsists on ber- 

 ries, roots, and field-fruits ; but with the same diet, and, 

 in regard to its climate at least, a very similar habitat, 

 the white-faced capuchin {Cebus leucomeros) is relatively 

 and absolutely the greatest coward in creation : the mere 

 sight of an unknown object is enough to frighten him into 

 a fit of extravagant jumps and contortions. Cowardice 

 is hardly the right word: if his conduct in captivity 

 can be accepted as a criterion of his mental constitu- 

 tion, the Cebus seems to pass his life in a delirium of 

 abject terror with rare and short self-possessed intervals. 

 The screams that accompany his fits of trepidation make 

 him a rather undesirable pet, for the constant exercise of 

 his vocal apparatus has developed that organ to a degree 

 out of all proportion to the size of the little alarmist. 

 Frederick Gerstaecker, who shipped a boxful of these 

 creatures on a Hamburg steamer, had to spend all his 

 loose cash in trinkgeld to save his proteges from being 

 kicked overboard by the exasperated crew. But, ac- 

 cording to Montaigne, poltroonery is merely a sign of 

 unusual foresight; and, if this be true, the providential 

 faculties of the capuchin must amount almost to clair- 

 voyance. 



In his lucid moods the Cebus is, on the whole, an 



