SPIDER-MONKE \ r S. 



161 



the branches at a great height, I fired, but unfortunately only wounded it in 

 the belly. It fell with a crash, headlong, about twenty or thirty feet, and then 

 caught a bough with its tail, which grasped it instantaneously, so that the animal 

 remained suspended in mid-air. Before I could reload, it recovered itself, and 

 mounted nimbly to the topmost branches, out of the reach of a fowling-piece, where 

 we could perceive the poor thing apparently probing its wound with its fingers. 



THE CHAMECK, OR THUMBED VARIETY OF THE RED-FACED SPIDER-MONKEY ( nat. size) 



Coaitas are more frequently kept in a tame state than any other kind of monkey. 

 The Indians are very fond of them as pets, and the women often suckle them when 

 young at their breasts. They become attached to their masters, and will sometimes 

 follow them on the ground to considerable distances. I once saw a most ridiculously 

 tame coaita. It was an old female, which accompanied its owner, a trader on the 

 river, in all his voyages. By way of giving me a specimen of its intelligence and 

 feeling, its master set to and rated it smartly, calling it scamp, heathen, thief, and 

 so forth, all through the copious Portuguese vocabulary of vituperation. The poor 

 monkey, quietly seated on the ground, seemed to be in sore trouble at this display 

 VOL. i. ii 



