542 



bertholletia, perforated at the summit, is not 

 dehiscent ; the upper and swelled part of the 

 columella forms (according- to Mr. Kunth) a 

 sort of inner cover, as in the fruit of the lecythis, 

 but it seldom opens of itself, Many seeds, from 

 the decomposition of the oil contained in the 

 cotyledons, lose the faculty of germination, 

 before the rainy season, in which the ligneous 

 integument of the pericarp opens by the effect of 

 putrefaction. A tale is very current on the 

 banks of the Lower Oroonoko, that the capu- 

 chin and cacajao monkeys (simia chiropotes, 

 and simia melanocephala) place themselves in a 

 circle, and, by striking the shell with a stone, 

 succeed in opening it, to take out the triangular 

 nuts. This operation must be impossible, on 

 account of the extreme hardness and thickness 

 of the pericarp. Monkeys may have been seen 

 busied in rolling along the fruit of the berthol- 

 letia, but* though this fruit has a small hole 

 closed by the upper extremity of the columella, 

 nature has not furnished monkeys with the 

 means of opening the ligneous pericarp, as it has 

 of opening the covercle of the lecythis, called 

 in the missions the covercle of the cocoa of the 

 monkeys*. According to the report of several 

 Indians of great veracity, the little glires only, 



* La tapa (the covercle) del coco de Monos. 



