152 TlMEHRI. 



a few weeks' careful examination would be productive 

 of a large number of interesting specimens. 



During nearly the whole time of our stay, rain fell in 

 torrents, as though to warn us that the wet season was 

 at hand ; and on this account not only the collecting of 

 specimens, but the preparation and drying of the skins 

 suffered considerably. Very fine specimens of the quata 

 or spider monkey (A teles paniscus) and the beza or 

 bearded saki (Brachyurus satanas) were obtained. 

 These two forms may well be taken as select members 

 of the Platyrhine division of the monkeys — a division 

 that is as sharply characteristic of the American conti- 

 nent as the Catarhine division is of the old world. In 

 both forms the faces are wonderfully human in aspect. 

 In the quata, the skin of the face is of a pinkish tint, in 

 wonderful contrast to the long black hair on the body, 

 and the whole expression is gentle and mournful ; while 

 the beza is black-faced and black-bearded, with long 

 black hair on the head and parted in the middle, while 

 the expression of the face is one of alertness, if not of 

 fierceness. The platyrhine character is well shewn, in 

 both the septum of the nose being thick so that the two 

 nostrils open sidewayj ; while the catarhine character of a 

 thin septum to the nostrils is exemplified in man, and the 

 man-like apes and the other monkeys of the Old World, 

 in which the nostrils open downwards. 



Among the birds, specimens were procured of the war- 

 racaba cr trumpeter (Psophia crepitans) , of the brilliant 

 and curious houtou (Momotus brasiliensis) — a bird 

 with the curious habit of pulling away barbs of its two 

 elongated tail feathers, which thus become quite paddle- 

 shaped ; of the lovely sun-parrot or hia-hia (Derop- 



