Ateles marginatus (nec Humb.), Geoffr., Ann. Mus., xiii., p. 92, pl. 10 (1809); Kuhl, Beitr. Zool., p. 24 (1820); Gray, Cat. Monkeys Brit. Mus., p. 43 (1870); Schl., Mus. Pays Bas, vii., p. 174 (1876).
Coaita à front blanc, femelle, Fr. Cuv., Hist. Nat. Mamm., livr. lxii. (Avril, 1830).
Ateles frontalis, Bennett, P. Z. S., 1831, p. 38.
Characters.—Similar in size and coloration to A. paniscus. Body lean; hair moderately long and coarse. Face naked, black, except the skin round the eyes, which is flesh-coloured; general colour black; under surface of body and inner sides of limbs, ashy-grey. It differs from A. paniscus by having the forehead, crown of head, a spot on each side of the nose, and the whiskers, white.
A specimen in the British Museum has four pre-molars in each upper jaw, instead of the normal three of the Cebidæ.
Distribution.—This species was discovered by Humboldt on the banks of the Santiago river. Mr. Bates says "it is never met with in the alluvial plains of the Amazons," nor, he believes, on the northern side of the great river-valley, except towards its head-waters near the Andes.
Habits.—According to Von Humboldt, this Spider-Monkey—known as the "White-Whiskered Coaita"—is very fierce and libidinous. Mr. Bates encountered this large and handsome species on the Cupari river, a tributary of the Tapajos, one of the large southern affluents of the Amazon. Here he could get scarcely anything but fish to eat, and, as this diet did not agree with him, he was obliged to have recourse to the Coaita flesh. "I thought," he says, "the meat the best flavoured I have ever tasted. It resembled beef, but had a richer and sweeter taste.... We smoke-dried the joints instead of salting them; placing them for several hours on a framework of sticks arranged over a fire. Nothing but the hardest necessity could have driven me so near to cannibalism as this, but we had the greatest difficulty in obtaining here a sufficient supply of animal food." Von Humboldt has also referred to the cooking of these Monkeys by the natives of the Upper Orinoko. "The manner of roasting these anthropomorphous animals," he writes, "contributes singularly to render their appearance disagreeable in the eyes of civilised Man. A little grating or lattice of very hard wood is formed, and raised one foot from the ground. The Monkey is skinned and bent into a sitting posture; the head generally resting on the arms, which are meagre and long; but sometimes these are crossed behind the back. When it is tied on the grating a very clear fire is kindled below.... On seeing the natives devour an arm or leg of a roasted Monkey, it is difficult not to believe that this habit of eating animals which so much resemble Man in their physical organisation, has in a certain degree contributed to diminish the horror of anthropophagy among savages. Roasted Monkeys, particularly those that have a very round head, display a hideous resemblance to a child; the Europeans, therefore, who are obliged to feed on Quadrumanes, prefer separating the head and the hands, and serve up only the rest of the animal at their tables. The flesh of Monkeys is so lean and dry that Mr. Bonpland has preserved in his collections at Paris an arm and hand, which had been boiled over the fire at Esmeraldas; and no smell arises from them after a great number of years."
VI. THE BLACK-FACED SPIDER-MONKEY. ATELES ATER.
Ateles ater (Le Caijou), F. Cuvier, Mamm., i., pl. xxxix. (1823); Sclater, P. Z. S., 1872, p. 5; Gray, Cat. Monkeys Brit. Mus., p. 42 (1870); Schl., Mus. Pays Bas, vii., p. 170 (1876).
Sapajou ater, Slack, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Philad., 1862, p. 510.