250 RARE AND BEAUTIFUL MONKEYS 
exaggerated nor degraded ; and the intelligence which 
this resemblance lends to their expression is fully 
borne out by their behaviour as observed by Hum- 
boldt and others, who have recorded their character 
in confinement. It is on record from more than one 
reliable source, that these South American monkeys, 
we believe alone among animals, can recognize the 
meaning of a picture. Audubon showed one the 
portraits of a cat and of a wasp, at both of which 
the monkey was much frightened, whereas on see- 
ing the painted picture of a grasshopper and a 
beetle, its natural food, it “ precipitated itself to- 
wards the picture, as if to seize the object there 
represented.” 
The beauty of the fur. is perhaps the most marked 
feature of these South American monkeys. One, the 
squirrel-monkey of Guiana, possesses the most brilliant 
colouring of any mammalian creature great or small. 
When lying along a branch, it might be taken for 
some slender, golden-hued squirrel, did not its round 
head and baby-like face at once claim a place for it 
among the monkey tribes. Its arms looks as though 
they had been dipped in gamboge-yellow dye up to 
the elbows. Above, the fur shades off into rich hues 
of greenish-olive, with alternating lengths of short 
and long hairs, of gold, green, and black, which cover 
the arched squirrel-like back. Its eyes are a brilliant 
black, but the cheeks are pink, and the hands flesh- 
coloured, like those of a very young child. This is a 
most vivacious little creature, quick and active in its 
