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turned backward. But if there exist a monkey 

 of a large size in the New Continent, how has it 

 happened, that during three centuries no man 

 worthy of belief has been able to procure the 

 skin of one ? Several hypotheses present them- 

 selves to the mind, in order to explain the source 

 of so ancient an error or belief. Has the fa- 

 mous capuchin monkey of Esmeralda # , the ca- 

 nine teeth of which are more than six lines and 

 a half long, the physiognomy much more like 

 man's-f than that of the ourang outang, and which, 

 when irritated, rubs it's beard with it's hand, 

 give rise to the fable of the salvaje ? It is not 

 so large indeed as the coaita (simia paniscus) ; 

 but when seen at the top of a tree, and the 

 head only visible, it might easily be taken for a 

 human being. It may be also (and this opinion 

 appears to me the most probable), that the man 

 of the woods was one of those large bears, the 

 footsteps of which resemble those of a man, and 

 which is believed in every country to attack wo- 

 men. The animal killed in my time at the foot of 

 the mountains of Merida, and sent, by the name 

 of salvaje, to Colonel Ungaro, the governor of 

 the province Varinas, was in fact a bear with 

 black and smooth fur. Our fellow-traveller, Don 



* Simia chiropotes. See my Obs. de Zool., vol. \, p. 312. 

 t The whole of the features, the expression of the physi- 

 ognomy, not the forehead. 



G 2 



