3io FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



a vase (fig. 64). They are produced on large forest- 

 trees, and are common throughout South America, 

 but especially in the forests of Brazil. The monkeys 

 are exceedingly fond of the delicious " sapucaia " 

 nuts which are produced within these capsules. As 

 Kingsley writes : — " The great urn-shaped fruits, big 

 enough to serve for drinking-vessels, each kindly 

 provided with a round wooden cover, which becomes 

 loose, and lets out the savoury sapucaia nuts inside, 

 to the comfort of all our ' poor relations.' Ah, when 

 will there arise a tropic Landseer to draw for us 

 some of the strange fashions of the strange birds and 

 beasts of these lands ? — to draw, for instance, the 

 cunning, selfish, greedy grin of delight on the face of 

 some burly, hairy, goitred old red howler, as he lifts 

 off a ' monkey-cacao ' cover, and looks defiance out 

 of the corners of his winking eyes at his wives and 

 children, cousins and grandchildren, who sit round 

 jabbering and screeching, and, monkey fashion, twist- 

 ing their heads upside down as they put their arms 

 round each other's waists, to peer over each other's 

 shoulders at the great bully, who must feed himself 

 first as his fee for having roared to them for an hour 

 at sunrise on a tree top while they sat on the lower 

 branches and looked up, trembling and delighted, at 

 the sound and fury of the idiot sermon." 1 



1 Kingsley's "At Last," p. 277. 



