Rengger taught one to open palm-nuts by breaking them with a stone, and so satisfied was it with its performance, that it soon began to experiment on other kinds of nuts, and then it began upon boxes. It also crushed off with blows of a stone the soft rind of a fruit that had a disagreeable flavour, in order to get at the luscious food within.
Some interesting observations were male by Rengger in Paraguay on the diseases of these Monkeys in their natural state. One kind of Cebus was found liable to what we call “colds,” or, medically speaking, catarrh. It had all the usual symptoms; was uncomfortable evidently for a while, had a stuffiness in the head, and then its nose ran like that of a child. If the colds occurred over and over again the same result took place as happens in man, for symptoms of consumption came on, and death ensued. Moreover, these same Monkeys suffered from apoplexy, inflammation of the bowels, and even from cataract in the eye. Even the tiny ones suffered like human babies in cutting their second set—or rather in shedding their milk, or first set—of teeth. They became feverish, and often died with the symptoms of fever on them.
The same author saw a Capuchin Monkey taking great and affectionate care of its infant. The flies were teasing it, and the mother drove them away as sedulously as possible. When in its native woods the Cebus Azaræ utters at least six distinct sounds when it is excited, and these seem to produce corresponding feelings in the Monkeys which are listening.
The Capuchins range from Costa Rica to Paraguay.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CEBIDÆ (concluded)—THE SQUIRREL MONKEYS—DOUROUCOULIS—SAKIS.
General Description of the Second Division of Cebidæ—Without Prehensile Tails—[THE SQUIRREL MONKEYS]—Described by Buffon and Humboldt—Peculiarities of the Species—Anecdotes by Le Vaillant—A Tragic End—[THE WIDOW MONKEY]—Origin of the Name—[THE ONAPPO]—Its Nocturnal Habits and Peculiar Cry—[THE DOUROUCOULIS, OR OWL MONKEYS]—General Description of the Family—Peculiar Formation of the Arm-bone—[THE THREE-STRIPED OWL MONKEY]—Described by Humboldt and Bates—[THE RED-FOOTED DOUROUCOULI]—[THE SAKIS]—Remarkable Resemblance in the Face to Man—Structural Peculiarities—[THE COUXIO]—[THE PARAUACÚ]—[THE MONK]—Description of the Brain—Other Varieties of the Sakis—Anecdotes of them—[THE BLACK-HEADED SAKIS]—General Description
NONE of the remaining groups or genera of these Monkeys of the New World have tails by which they can hang on with, or by the aid of which they can swing or cling when falling. Some kinds may curl the tail around a bough, or use it in their rapid side movements, after the manner of other animals, but it is never truly prehensile.
This deficiency in the prehensile capacity of the tail is, of course, accompanied by an absence of the elaborate tail structures, and the end bones especially are no longer flattened, so as to grasp easily, but are round.
There are other signs of their having a less elaborate conformation than the prehensile-tailed; thus, the front teeth project, or are prominent obliquely in all but one genus, and the feet and hands resemble those of quadrupeds more than ever. In fact, having descended the scale of Monkeys nearly to the bottom, resemblances with the next groups of animals are becoming more and more apparent. Just as the Monkeys of the Old World—the Baboons—resemble the carnivorous animals in many points, so these non-prehensile-tailed Monkeys of the New World have many likenesses with the Lemuroida, and with insect-eating animals, and the smaller they are the greater is the resemblance. There are two divisions of the Monkeys without prehensile tails. In one, the species have the same number of teeth as Mycetes and Ateles; and in the other they have only thirty-two teeth.