Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/339

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Chap. V.
BARRIGUDO MONKEYS.
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by being adapted to similar modes of life. The Loris and their relatives of Tropical Asia have six incisor teeth to the lower jaws, and belong, in all other essential points of structure, to the Lemur family, which has not a single representative in the New World. The Ei-ás have teeth of the same number, and growing in nearly the same position, as their near relatives the Sai-mirís. I obtained, moreover, yet stronger proof of this close relationship between the night and day monkeys of America, in finding a species on the Upper Amazons which supplies a link between them. This one had ears nearly as short as those of the night apes, and also a striped forehead; the stripes being, however, two in number, instead of three: the colours of the body were very similar to those of the well-known Chrysothrix sciureus, and the eyes were fitted for day vision.

Barrigudo Monkeys.—Ten other species of monkeys were found, in addition to those already mentioned, in the forests of the Upper Amazons. All were strictly arboreal and diurnal in their habits, and lived in flocks, travelling from tree to tree, the mothers with their children on their backs; leading, in fact, a life similar to that of the Parárauáte Indians, and, like them, occasionally plundering the plantations which lie near their line of march. Some of them were found also on the Lower Amazons, and have been noticed in former chapters of this narrative. Of the remainder, the most remarkable is the Macaco barrigudo, or big-bellied monkey of the Portuguese colonists, a species of Lagothrix. The genus is closely allied to the Coaitás, or spider monkeys, having, like them, exceedingly strong