4 o ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



trudes his lips with a quite peculiar mumbling purr more 

 nearly resembling a certain modulation of the human 

 voice than any animal sound I am acquainted with. His 

 signal of alarm is a coughing scream, not unlike the 

 yell of a frightened dog. The meaning of that scream 

 seems, indeed, to be understood by every beast or bird, 

 as certain onomatopoetic words recur in the language of 

 every nation. The screech of the capuchin-monkey is 

 somewhat louder and shriller: an adult of the white- 

 faced variety, a fellow not much larger than a cat, can 

 out-yell a couple of good-sized boys. Nearly all the 

 South-American ring-tails are obstreperous brutes, and 

 their talent culminates in the big red howler (Mycetes 

 ursinus), a vocalist whose performances, combined with 

 the screams of the jaguar, make the nocturnal forests of 

 the Orinoco a howling wilderness in the most shocking 

 sense of the words. The meaning of his nightly uproar 

 is rather doubtful, since it can hardly be a love-note, like 

 the amorous acclaims of the red deer and buffalo at cer- 

 tain seasons of the year. It may be intended to frighten 

 his enemies ; and if it answers that purpose a troop of 

 Mycetes cannot complain of want of elbow-room, for 

 the whoops of the old sachems can be plainly heard at a 

 distance of four English miles. Besides this astonishing 

 vocal power, the chacma baboon is a still greater master 

 of the science of tucbeer, the stentorian art of intimida- 

 ting an enemy, so much valued among the ancient Sara- 

 cens and modern Sioux. The hoarse, coughing bark of 



