Chap. Y. 
THE JUPURA. 
323 
very flexible towards the tip, and is used to twine 
round branches in dimbing. I did not see or hear 
anything of this animal whilst residing on the Lower 
Amazons, but on the banks of the Upper river, from 
the Teffe to Peru, it appeared to be rather common. It 
is nocturnal in its habits, like the owl-faced monkeys, 
although, unlike them, it has a bright, dark eye. I 
once saw it in considerable numbers, when on an excur- 
sion with an Indian companion along the low Ygapo 
shores of the Teffe, about twenty miles above Ega. 
We slept one night at the house of a native family 
living in the thick of the forest, where a festival w^as 
going on, and there being no room to hang our ham- 
mocks under shelter, on account of the number of 
visitors, we lay down on a mat in the open air, near a 
shed which stood in the midst of a grove of fruit-trees 
and pupunha palms. After midnight, when all be- 
came still, after the uproar of holiday-making, as I was 
listening to the dull, fanning sound made by the wings 
of impish hosts of vampire bats crowding round the 
Cajli trees, a rustle commenced from the side of the 
woods, and a troop of slender, long-tailed animals were 
seen against the clear moonlit sky, taking flying leaps 
from branch to branch through the grove. Many of 
them stopped at the pupunha trees, and the hustling, 
twittering, and screaming, with sounds of falling fruits, 
showed how they were employed. I thought, at first, 
they were Nyctipitheci, but they proved to be Jupuras, 
for the owner of the house early next morning caught a 
young one, and gave it to me. I kept this as a pet animal 
for several weeks, feeding it on bananas and mandioca- 
Y 2 
