CHAPTER VIII.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE FORESTS:—THE CEBIDÆ, OR MONKEYS OF AMERICA—THE LEMURS—THE SLOTHS—THE SQUIRRELS.
THE Ancient Continent possesses, in addition to the great apes of which I have already spoken, the Macaucos, the Cynocephali, and the Anthropomorphes, other apes of more erect, and one might even say more elegant figures, essentially climbers, and provided with a long, but not prehensile tail. Such are the Semnopitheci and the Monkeys of the African forests, of India and Indo-China, of Japan and the Indian Archipelago. These two latter groups approximate, by their external forms, to the apes of the New World; divided by Buffon into Sagouins and Sapajous, but re-united in the new classification of naturalists under one single family, named Cebidæ. These—one genus, the Brachiura, excepted—have all a very long, and, generally, a prehensile tail. They differ, moreover, from the Simidæ of the Old World in the disposition of their nostrils, which are always open laterally, and separated by a thick depressed membrane; in such wise, that it might also be affirmed they were gifted with two noses! By nature they are of a gentle and placable disposition, readily domesticate themselves with man, and do not become in their old age more impracticable or malicious than in youth.
The Cebidæ are divided into several genera, such as the Howlers, the Atelæ, the Sajous, the Saïmris, the Nyctipitheci, or Nocturnal Apes; to which we may add, perhaps, the tribe of the Hapalidæ (Ouistitis and Tamarins).
To the Howling Monkeys we have found it convenient to refer in a preceding chapter, and it is almost needless to remind the reader that they owe their distinctive name to their habit of assembling in the woods, and startling the echoes with a chorus of unearthly noises. They chiefly inhabit New Grenada, Guiana, Brazil, and Paraguay, where, night and morning, their discordant orchestra strikes terror to the soul of the unaccustomed traveller.
I have already said that the tail of nearly all the American Cebidæ is long and prehensile; that is, endowed with a peculiar faculty of winding or clinging round any object.
