SOUTH AMERICA. 291 

 were a supple finger, and frequently swing by it from the Fourth 



JOUKNEY. 



branch like the pendulum of a clock. It answers all the 

 purposes of a fifth hand to the monkey, as naturalists 

 have already observed. 



The large red Monkey of Demerara is not a Baboon, The large 



red Monkey 



though it goes by that name, having a long pensile tail.* of Demerara. 

 Nothing can sound more dreadful than its nocturnal 

 bowlings. While lying in your hammoclv in these gloomy 

 and immeasurable wilds, you hear him howling at inter- 

 vals, from eleven o'clock at night till daybreak. You 

 would suppose that half the wild beasts of the forest 

 were collecting for the work of carnage. Now, it is the 

 tremendous roar of the Jaguar, as he springs on his 

 prey : now, it changes to his terrible and deep-toned 

 growlings, as he is pressed on all sides by superior force : 

 and now, you hear his last dying moan, beneath a 

 mortal wound. 



Some naturalists have supposed that these awful sounds, 

 which you would fancy are those of enraged and dying 

 wild beasts, proceed from a number of the red Monkies 

 howling in concert. One of them alone is capable of 

 producing all these sounds ; and the anatomists, on an 

 inspection of his trachea, will be fully satisfied that this 

 is the case. When you look at him, as he is sitting on 

 the branch of a tree, you will see a lump in his throat, 



* I believe prensile is a new-coined word. I have seen it, but do not 

 remember where. 



2 p 2 



