THE WOOLLY MONKEYS. 
171 
those specimens of this species were found which are now in the British Museum. The animals afford 
a dark and not very nice meat, which is readily eaten by the Indians. The young as well as the 
females are of the same dense black colour as the old males, but the hair is shorter and not so glossy. 
All have the hair of the front part of the head long and soft, and inclined forward over the forehead 
nearly to the eyes. There are ten species of Howlers, and they are found in the forests covering the 
country from East Guatemala to Paraguay. 
THE WOOLLY MONKEYS * 
Humboldt, in one of his geographical excursions amongst the great streams which feed the 
Orinoco, went far up towards their sources. Going once into an Indian cabin in those remote regions 
lie saw a large Monkey, of a kind which lie had never seen before. He named it, after the words of 
the natives, “ The Caparro,” and from its having a peculiar furry skin which reminded him of the 
familiar hare-skin of home, he termed it Lagotriche, from \ay6s (a hare), and Bpl$, rpix^s (hair, or fur), 
and thus arose the genus about to be described. 
Humboldt’s new Monkey had a prehensile tail which was longer than the body, and underneath, 
close to the tip, there was a naked and sensitive spot of some length. It had a round and large head, 
a naked black face, but no beard. There were, however, smellers or long hairs around the mouth. It 
had long limbs and a shortish body, whose fur was long and sable-grey in colour. A good temper and 
a quiet disposition appeared to characterise this Monkey, and the natives said it was found in troops, 
and that it often stood upon its hind legs. 
They have thumbs, as well shaped- as those of any American Monkey, on the fore hands, as well 
as on the hinder extremities. They were deficient, however, in the howling apparatus, and therefore 
they differ from the Mycetes, and as their thumbs were noticed to be large, they differ from the next 
group of Monkeys, or the Spider Monkeys. 
A careful examination of the skeleton shows that the outside differences are accompanied by inside 
ones, especially in the skeleton. 
Thus, there are fourteen rib-bearing back-bones, or vertebrae, and this increase of number over the 
ordinary thirteen is interesting, because it makes the animal approach those lower than the Primates ; 
then it has four loin vertebra?, and three are in the sacrum bone. There is a curious growth of the 
second vertebra of the neck or the axis, for its spine is trifid, and has three projections for the 
attachment of muscles. Finally, the long tail is very elaborate in its bony part, and seven of its 
bones near the root have so great a resemblance to the back-bones higher up in the body, that they 
have a canal like that which in the others protects the spinal marrow, which, however, does not reach 
further down than the lower loins. Then five of them have good strong spines, and all have the 
chevron or Y-shaped bones underneath well grown. 
This tail is quite as useful to the Lagothrix as it is to the Howlers and to the Spider Monkeys 
about to be considered, and they feel with, and swing and hold by it, to perfection. 
The Caparro is about two feet two inches in length -without the tail, and has been subsequently 
to its description by Humboldt called Lagotlirix Humboldtii, or Humboldt’s Lagothrix. 
THE BARRIGUDO.+ 
Bates says of this Monkey, that it is, with the rest of those found in the district of the Upper 
Amazon, arboreal and diurnal in its habits, and that it lives in troops, travelling from tree to tree, 
the mothers with the children on their backs ; leading, in fact, a life similar to that of some Indians, 
and like them occasionally plundering the plantations which lie near their line of march. The 
Barrigudo is the “big-bellied Monkey” of the Portuguese colonists, and they are very bulky 
animals. They have the head clothed with grey, and they live with the Caparro mentioned 
above, in the same forests, and lead the same kind of life. One measured twenty-six inches in 
length, and the tail six, and it was the largest Monkey he saw in America, with the exception of a 
* Lagothrix. 
f Lagothrix oliuaceus . 
