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PARA 



tail. It is named leoninus on account of the long brown 

 mane which depends from the neck, and which gives it 

 very much the appearance of a diminutive lion. In the 

 house where it was kept, it was familiar with every one ; 

 its greatest pleasure seemed to be to climb about the 

 bodies of different persons who entered. The first time 

 I went in, it ran across the room straightway to the chair 

 on which I had sat down, and climbed up to my shoulder ; 

 arrived there, it turned round and looked into my face, 

 showing its little teeth, and chattering, as though it would 

 say, ' Well, and how do you do ? * It showed more 

 affection towards its master than towards strangers, and 

 would climb up to his head a dozen times in the course 

 of an hour, making a great show every time of searching 

 there for certain animalcula. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire 

 relates of a species of this genus, that it distinguished 

 between different objects depicted on an engraving. M. 

 Audouin showed it the portraits of a cat and a wasp ; 

 at these it became much terrified : whereas, at the sight 

 of a figure of a grasshopper or beetle, it precipitated itself 

 on the picture, as if to seize the objects there represented. 



Although monkeys are now rare in a wild state near 

 Para, a great number may be seen semi-domesticated in 

 the city. The Brazilians are fond of pet animals. Mon- 

 keys, however, have not been known to breed in captivity 

 in this country. I counted, in a short time, thirteen 

 different species, whilst walking about the Para streets, 

 either at the doors or windows of houses, or in the native 

 canoes. Two of them I did not meet with afterwards in 

 any other part of the country. One of these was the well- 

 known Hapale Jacchus, a Httle creature resembling a 

 kitten, banded with black and gray all over the body 

 and tail, and having a fringe of long white hairs sur- 

 rounding the ears. It was seated on the shoulder of a 

 young mulatto girl, as she was walking along the street, 

 and I was told had been captured in the island of Marajo. 

 The other was a species of Cebus, with a remarkably large 

 head. It had ruddy-brown fur, paler on the face, but 

 presenting a blackish tuft on the top of the forehead. 



In the wet season serpents are common in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Para. One morning, in April, 1849, after a 

 night of deluging rain, the lamplighter, on his rounds to 

 extinguish the lamps, knocked me up to show me a boa- 

 constrictor he had just killed in the Rua St. Antonio, 



