532 THE SIMIiE OF THE NEW WORLD 



these immeasurable wilds is unable to turn to advantage, 

 fall chiefly to their share ; many of them also live upon 

 insects. They are never seen in the open campos and 

 savannas, as they never touch the ground unless compelled 

 by the greatest necessity. The trees of the forest furnish 

 them with all the food they require in inexhaustible abund- 

 ance ; it is only in the woods that they feel " at home " and 

 secure against the attacks of mightier animals ; why then should 

 they quit them for less congenial haunts ? For their perpetual 

 wanderings from branch to branch, Nature has bountifully en- 

 dowed many of them not only with robust and muscular limbs, 

 and large hands, whose moist palms facilitate the seizure of a 

 bough, but in many cases also with a prehensile tail, which may 

 deservedly be called a fifth hand, and is hardly less wonderful in 

 its structure than the proboscis of the elephant. Covered with 

 short hair, and completely bare underneath towards the end, 

 this admirable organ rolls round the boughs as though it were 

 a supple finger, and is at the same time so muscular, that the 

 monkey frequently swings with it from a branch like the pen- 

 dulum of a clock. 



Scarce has he grasped a bough with his long arms, when im- 

 mediately coiling his fifth hand round the branch, he springs 

 on to the next, and secure from a fall, hurries so rapidly 

 through the crowns of the highest trees that the sportsman's ball 

 has scarce time to reach him in his flight. When the Miriki 

 {Ateles hypoxanthus), the largest of the Brazilian monkeys, sit- 

 ting or stretched out at full length, suns himself on a high branch, 

 his tail suffices to support him in his aerial resting-place, and 

 even when mortally wounded, he remains a long time suspended 

 by it, until life being quite extinct, his heavy body, whizzing 

 through the air, and breaking many a bough as it descends, falls 

 with a lo\id crash to the ground. 



The famous wourali poison is alone capable of instantly anni- 

 hilating his muscular powers, and of sparing the wounded animal 

 a long and painful agony. Slow and with noiseless step, so as 

 scarcely to disturb the fallen leaves beneath his feet, the wily 

 Indian approaches. His weapons are strange and peculiar, and 

 of so slight an appearance as to form a wondrous contrast to 

 their terrific power. A colossal species of bamboo (Amuidi- 

 naria SchomhurgJcii), whose perfectly cylindrical culm often rises 



