“The largest of the American monkeys is far below the largest of his Asiatic or African cousins in the matter of size. While several members of the baboon family are five feet in height, and a large gorilla is said to be six feet or very nearly when standing erect, the largest of the American monkeys, if we leave his long tail out of calculation, does not exceed three feet. He belongs in South America, and is known as the Howler, and he can howl louder than twenty men if the stories of travelers are to be believed. The noise he makes is so terrific, that many a traveler has been frightened by it and has thought that all the wild beasts of the woods had assembled close at hand, and were about to devour everybody and everything within their neighborhood. One monkey gives a howl, and when he is tired he signals to the rest tried to ascertain accurately how far the sound could be heard. Judging the distance by the time it took him to reach the tree where the monkeys were, he thought two miles not an over estimate; when the sound came across a lake unimpeded by trees it was easily audible a good three miles.”
George asked if these animals kept up their howling when in captivity?
“They all shout in chorus. After a while they stop, and then the solitary one starts up again. And in this way the unearthly chorus is kept up from midnight till sunrise; sometimes they begin at the close of day and keep it up all night, making it quite impossible for a traveler to sleep within a mile of them.”
“Can they really be heard at the distance of a mile?” one of the boys asked.
“Yes, and farther still,” was the reply.
Mr Graham explained that they were active enough in the woods, but as soon as they became prisoners they lost all their spirit, displayed surly dispositions, refused to make friends with anybody, and soon died of grief.