DISPERSION. 313 



the noise made by the seeds when the fruit is shaken 

 as it falls from the tree excites their appetency to 

 the highest degree/' x He does not, however, believe 

 the story current on the Orinoco, that the monkeys 

 place themselves in a circle, and by striking the shell 

 with a stone succeed in opening it. That they may 

 try is possible enough, for there is no doubt that 

 monkeys do use stones to crack nuts. The impos- 

 sibility in this case would be, not in the want of wits, 

 but want of strength ; and the monkeys must have 

 too often to wait till the rainy season, when the shell 

 rots of itself, and amuse themselves meanwhile in 

 rolling the fruit about, vainly longing to get their 

 paws in through the one little hole at its base. 



Another instance of these wholly closed capsules 

 is the fruit of the cannon-ball tree (Couroupita 

 guianensis). This fruit " is a rough brown globe, as 

 big as a thirty-two pound shot, which you must get 

 down with a certain caution, lest that befal you which 

 befel a certain gallant officer on the mainland of 

 America. For, fired with a post-prandial ambition 

 to obtain a cannon ball, he took to himself a long 

 bamboo, and poked at the tree. He succeeded, but 

 not altogether as he had hoped. For the cannon 

 ball, in coming down, avenged itself by dropping 

 exactly on the bridge of his nose, felling him to the 



1 Humboldt's " Personal Narrative," vol. v., p. 537. 



