MAMMALS 3 



domestic arrangements of the ape will remain undis- 

 covered. 



The Maias is a great traveller, and I have never heard 

 of one haunting a small area for any length of time. 

 As they are fruit-eaters it is necessary for them to cover 

 a good deal of ground in order to find suitable and 

 sufficient food, and consequently unlike less dainty 

 animals they are continually on the move. 



At night they make a kind of nest by pulling and 

 bending down small branches to form a little platform 

 in the fork of a bough. The platform is remarkably 

 small, often not much bigger than a rook's nest and 

 never exceeding 4^ feet in diameter ; it is constructed 

 in comparatively small trees. 



When the Maias goes to rest, it lies flat on its back 

 on its nest and holds like grim death with hands and 

 feet to the branches in the fork of which the nest lies ; 

 and so it passes the night, half supported by the frail 

 platform, half suspended by the hands and feet, whose 

 grip is secure even in the deepest slumber. A young 

 Maias that I kept as a pet for many months always 

 slept in an empty room in my house : the only article 

 of furniture in this room was an iron bedstead, and on 

 to the steel laths of this the ape would solemnly climb 

 every evening at about 6.30 ; he invariably sprawled on 

 the flat of his back, pulled over his head and chest a 

 piece of sacking with which he was provided, and with 

 hands and feet got a good grip on the posts or frame 

 of the bed. In a few minutes he would be asleep, and 

 his snoring was so loud that it could be heard nearly 

 all over house. 



If, in the daytime, this young ape desired to rest in 

 a tree, he would construct a rough attempt at a platform, 



