Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/271

sence of a thumb to the anterior hands. It is worthy of note that this strange deficiency occurs again in the Quadrumanous order only in the Colobi, a genus of apes peculiar to Africa. The Colobi, however, are not furnished with prehensile tails, and belong, in all their essential characters, to the Catarhinæ, or Old World monkeys, a group entirely distinct from the Platyrhinæ, or South American sub-order. The want of the thumb, therefore, is not a sign of near relationship between the Colobi and the Coaitás, but is a mere analogical character, which must have originated, in each case, through independent, although perhaps similar, causes. One species of Coaitá has a rudiment of thumb, without a nail. The flesh of this monkey is much esteemed by the natives in this part of the country, and the Military Commandant of Obydos, Major Gama, every week sent a negro hunter to shoot one for his table. One day I went on a Coaitá hunt, borrowing a negro slave of a friend to show me the way. On the road I was much amused by the conversation of my companion. He was a tall, handsome negro, about forty years of age, with a staid, courteous demeanour and a deliberate manner of speaking. Strangely enough in a negro, he was a total abstainer from liquors and tobacco. He told me he was a native of Congo, and the son of a great chief or king. He narrated the events of a great battle between his father's and some other tribe, in which he was taken prisoner and sold to the Portuguese slave-dealers. When in the deepest part of the ravine we heard a rustling sound in the trees overhead, and Manoel soon pointed out a Coaitá to me. There was something