94 MAMMALIA — HO WLING MONKEY. 



easily distinguished from the monkey kind. In the use of their tail these 

 animals are singularly dexterous. They can pick up with it even straws 

 and bits of Avood ; and M. Audebert tells us, that he saw one of the species 

 carry hay in its tail to make its bed, and move and spread it about as easily 

 as an elephant could have done with his trunk. 



In climbing, too, this member is of great use. There are, (says Dam- 

 pier,) in the Isthmus of America, numbers of monkeys, some of which are 

 white, but the most part black — some have beards, others none. These 

 monkeys are very droll, and performed a thousand grotesque postures as we 

 traversed in the woods. When they are unable to leap from one tree to 

 another, on account of the distance, or the tree being separated by a river, 

 their dexterity is very surprising. The whole family form a kind of chain, 

 locking tail in tail, or hand in hand, and one of them holding the branch 

 above, the rest swing down, balancing to and fro like a pendulum, until the 

 undermost is enabled to catch hold of the lower branches of some neighbor- 

 ing tree. When the hold is fixed below, the monkey lets go that which 

 was above, and thus comes undermost in turn ; but creeping up along the 

 chain, attains the next branches of the tree like the rest ; and thus, they all 

 take possession without ever coming to the ground. 



They have the address to break the shell of oysters to eat them. They 

 generally produce only one or two young ones at a time, which they carry 

 upon their backs ; they feed upon fish, worms, and insects, but fruit is their 

 general food, and they grow fat when it is ripe, when, it is said, their flesh 

 is good and exquisite eating. 



The coaita is about a foot and a half long, and its tail is longer than the 

 head and body measured together : it goes on all fours. 



THE WARINE, AND THE ALOUATO, OR 

 HOWLING MONKEY.i 



Are the largest of these animals, belonging to the new continent : tliey 

 surpass the size of the largest monkey, and approach the size of the baboon. 

 They have a long tail, and are moreover of the sapajou family, in which they 

 hold a very distinct rank, not only with regard to size, but also to voice, 

 which sounds like a drum, or as others say, like the screaming of immense 

 herds of swine, and may be heard at a very great distance. From the exces- 

 sive noise which they make, they have obtained the name of the howling 

 monkey. Marcgrave informs us, "that every morning and evening the n-arincs 



1 Mycetes seniculus. The genus Mycetes has four upper and four lower incisors : two 

 upper and two lower canines; twelve upper and twelve lower molars. Canines well de- 

 veloped, triquetrous; head pyramidal; countenance oblique; facial angle, thirty degrees; 

 hyoid bone veutricose, apparent externally, and cavernous. Four extremities pentadac- 

 tyle ; tail very long ; strongly prehensile, naked under its extremity ; nails convex and short. 



