THE SPIDER MONKEY. 480 



Paraguay, where, night and morning, their discordant orchestra 

 strikes terror to the soul of the unaccustomed traveller. 



I have already said that the tail of nearly all the American Cebidae 

 is long and prehensile ; that is, endowed with a peculiar faculty of 

 winding or clinging round any object. 



In the genus Ateles, or "Spider Monkey," for example, it virtually 

 forms a fifth limb, by whose agency the animal suspends himself in 



ATELES CROSSING A RIVER. 



the air, and darts from one tree to another with more than the agility 

 of a Leotard. It amply compensates for the imperfection with which 

 Nature has afflicted him by leaving his fore-paws deprived of thumbs. 

 He owes his popular designation of the Spider Monkey to his long 

 slender limbs and sprawling gestures. In the colour of his skin, his 



31 a 



