THE HOWLERS. 



63 



and deliberate. In presence of danger they 

 retire to the topmost branches of the trees, or 

 into the recesses of the twining plants of the 

 forest. The large climbing members of the 

 cat tribe, the puma and ocelot, large serpents 

 such as the anaconda, and man are their chief 

 enemies; dogs pursue them with fury. On 

 taking to flight they often let fall their excre- 



ments in their terror. The species shown in 

 fig. 14, the Red Howling Monkey {^Mycetes 

 seniculus), has somewhat of the same colour 

 as our squirrels. Old males acquire a golden 

 yellow shimmer; the females and young are 

 darker in colour. The fur is mostly very 

 dense on the back. Several species are 

 known. 



Kig. 14.— Ked Howl 



. [Mycetes scniculus). 



Le Vaillant, the naturalist and traveller, in the 

 Introduction to his First Voyage tells the following 

 story of a young red howling monkey {M. seniculus), 

 such as is still called by the settlers in Guiana, as 

 we are informed by Im Thurn, a baboon. It will 

 be interesting to compare this account with that 

 given by Wallace of the young mias. Le Vaillant, 

 who was brought up in Dutch Guiana, where as a 

 boy he was an enthusiastic collector of insects, had 

 killed a mother. " As she carried on her back a 

 young one which had not been wounded, we took 

 them both along with us, and when wc returned to 



the plantation my baboon had not quitted the 

 shoulders of its mother. It clung so closely to her 

 that I was obliged to have the assistance of a negro 

 to disengage them, but scarcely was it separated 

 from her, when, like a bird, it darted upon a wooden 

 block that stood near covered with my father's wig, 

 which it embraced with its fore-paws so firmly that 

 I could not get it to quit its hold. Deceived by its 

 instinct, it still imagined itself to be on the back of 

 its mother, and under her protection. As it seemed 

 perfectly at ease on the wig, I suffered it to remain, 

 and fed it there from a sucking-bottle with goat's 



