THE CACAJAO. 



97 



varied than those of the Cuxio. As will be seen from the accompanying engraving, 

 the head is surrounded with a thick and closely-set fringe of white hair which is rather 

 short in the male, but long and drooping in the female. The top of the head is of a deep 

 black, and the remainder of the body and tail is covered with very long and rather 

 coarse hair of a blackish-brown. Under the chin and throat the hairs are almost entirely 

 absent, and the skin is of an orange hue. 



Beside the difference of length in the facial hairs of the female Yarke, there are several 

 distinctions between the sexes, which are so decided as to have caused many naturalists 

 to consider the male and female to belong to different species. The hair of the female 

 Yarke is decorated near the tip with several rings of a rusty brown color, while the 

 hair of the male is entirely devoid of these marks. 



CACAJAO. Pithefla Melaaocephala. 



The natural food of these animals is said to consist chiefly of wild bees and their 

 honeycombs. Perhaps the long furry hair with which the Sakis are covered, may be 

 useful for the purpose of defending them from the stings of the angry insects. On 

 account of the full and bushy tail with which the members of this group are furnished, 

 they are popularly classed together under the title of Fox-tailed Monkeys. 



The two animals which have just been noticed are marked by such decided peculiarities 

 of form and color that they can easily be distinguished from any other monkeys. The 

 Cuxio is known by its black beard and parted hair, the black Yarke by its dark body and 

 white head-fringe, while the CACAJAO is conspicuous by reason of its black head and 

 short tail. 



When this animal was first discovered, it was thought that the tail had been docked 

 either by some accident, or by the teeth of the monkey itself, as is the custom with so 

 many of the long-tailed monkeys of the Old World. But the natives of the country 

 where it lives assert that its brevity of tail is a distinctive character of the species. 

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