SOUTH AMERICA. 305 



dreadful than its nocturnal bowlings. While 

 lying in your hammock in these gloomy and 

 immeasurable wilds, you bear him howling at 

 intervals, from eleven o'clock at night till day- 

 break. You would suppose that half the wild 

 beasts of the forest were collecting for the work 

 of carnage. Now, it is the tremendous roar of 

 the jaguar, as he springs on his prey : now, it 

 changes to his terrible and deep-toned growlings, 

 as he is pressed on all sides by superior force : 

 and now, you hear his last dying moan, beneath 

 a mortal wound. 



Some naturalists have supposed that these awful 

 sounds, which you would fancy are those of en- 

 raged and dying wild beasts, proceed from a 

 number of the red monkies howling in concert. 

 One of them alone is capable of producing all 

 these sounds ; and the anatomists, on an in- 

 spection of his trachea, will be fully satisfied that 

 this is the case. When you look at him, as he 

 is sitting on the branch of a tree, you will see 

 a lump in his throat, the size of a large hen's 

 egg. In dark and cloudy weather, and just 

 before a squall of' rain, this monkey will often 

 howl in the day-time ; and if you advance cau- 

 tiously, and get under the high and tufted tree 

 where he is sitting, you may have a capital 

 opportunity of witnessing his wonderful powers 

 of producing these dreadful and discordant 

 sounds. 



