MONKEYS OF SOUTH AMERICA 
In the monkeys of America we have, as has been stated, a 
broad-nosed type differing from their relatives of Africa and 
Asia; and it is a more ancient and an inferior type. American 
The group is divisible into two families, —the Hapa- Monkeys. 
lide, or marmosets, with thirty-two teeth, and the Cebide 
with thirty-six teeth. “The former include the marmosets 
(Hapale) and the tamarins (Midas). The latter comprise 
the capuchins (Cebus), which may be taken as the representa- 
tive genus of American monkeys, the woolly monkeys (Lago- 
thrix), the spider monkeys (Ateles and the allied Eriodes), the 
howlers (Mycetes), the sakis (Pithecia and Brachyurus), the 
night monkeys or douroucolis (Nyctipithecus), and the squir- 
rel monkeys or saimiris (Chrysothrix) with the allied Cal- 
lithrix.” 
The forests of equatorial South America are the headquar- 
ters of the tribe, and the exclusive home of many species, some 
of which are restricted to narrow areas, the great rivers often 
acting as impassable boundaries. No monkeys ascend high 
in the Andes, or reach the West Coast; and none is found south 
of the forests of Brazil or north of south-central Mexico. Fos- 
sil remains of monkeys are rare everywhere, and known in the 
New World only from the Santa Cruz Miocene formations 
of Patagonia; and they show no more kinship with Old World 
types than do the existing species. 
American monkeys are all small, the largest having a body 
no more than twenty inches long, while some are no bigger 
than young kittens. One baby is born to each pair each year 
as a tule. All are very hairy or woolly, and none has naked 
callosities. Adapted to a continuous life in trees, most of them 
are provided with prehensile tails — that 1s, the tip is muscu- 
lar and almost automatically curls around whatever it touches. 
“This prehensile tail,” wrote Waterton, “is a most curious thing. It 
has been denominated very appropriately a fifth hand. It is of manifest 
37 
