280 THE UNKNOWN. 



the almost boundless forests of South America have yet 

 to yield to scientific enterprise. 



Yet in all this profusion, it is almost wholly new species 

 of already recognised genera that constitute the reward 

 of perseverance. It is comparatively rare to capture a 

 butterfly so different from anything before known as to 

 warrant the formation of a new genus ; and the occurrence 

 of a new family is almost out of the question. 



Then, again, throughout that immense region, so little 

 explored by competent naturalists, we can assert with a 

 measure of confidence that no great mammal, scarcely any 

 conspicuous bird, is at all likely to be added to those 

 already known, with the exception of additional species 

 of characteristic and large groups, such as the trogons, 

 the tanagers, the toucans, or the humming-birds. At the 

 same time, we may well believe that many of the smaller 

 mammalia, and a still greater number of the sombre- 

 coloured birds, have been as yet unnoticed. 



It is, however, possible that a great anthropoid ape 

 may exist, as yet unrecognised by zoologists. On the 

 cataracts of the upper Orinoco, Humboldt heard reports 

 of a " hairy man of the woods," which was reputed to 

 build huts, to carry off women, and to devour human 

 flesh. The first and second of these attributes are so 

 characteristic of the great anthropoid Simice of Africa, 

 that, unless the belief has been transferred from the one 

 continent to the other, (a circumstance little probable, 

 when we think of the seat of the report, in the very heart 

 of the forests of Venezuela,) their adduction gives a 



