With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 2

by Unknown

Besides injuring and destroying young trees by despoiling them of their foliage, the Saüba ant is troublesome to the inhabitants from its habit of plundering the stores of provisions in houses at night, for it is even more active at night than in the daytime. At first I was inclined to discredit the stories of their entering habitations and carrying off grain by grain the farinha or mandioca meal, the bread of the poorer classes of Brazil. At length, while residing at an Indian village on the Tapajos, I had ample proof of the fact. One night my servant woke me three or four times before sunrise by calling out that the rats were robbing the farinha baskets. The article at that time was scarce and dear. I got up, listened, and found the noise very unlike that made by rats. So I took the light and went into the store-room, which was close to my sleeping-place. I there found a broad column of Saüba ants, consisting of thousands of individuals, as busy as possible, passing to and fro between the door and my precious baskets. Most of those passing outward were laden each with a grain of farinha, which was, in some cases, larger and many times heavier than the bodies of the carriers.

Farinha consists of grains of similar size and appearance to the tapioca of our shops; both are products of the same root, tapioca being the pure starch, and farinha the starch mixed with woody fibre, the latter ingredient giving it a yellowish color. It was amusing to see some of the dwarfs, the smallest members of their family, staggering along, completely hidden under their load. The baskets, which were on a high table, were entirely covered with ants, many hundreds of whom were employed in snipping the dry leaves which served as lining. This produced the rustling sound which had at first disturbed us. My servant told me that they would carry off the whole contents of the two baskets (about two bushels) in the course of the night if they were not driven off, so we tried to exterminate them by killing them with our wooden clogs. It was impossible, however, to prevent fresh hosts coming in as fast as we killed their companions. They returned the next night, and I was then obliged to lay trains of gun-powder along their line and blow them up. This, repeated many times, at last seemed to intimidate them, for we were free from their visits during the remainder of my residence at the place.

What they did with the hard dry grains of mandioca I was never able to ascertain, and cannot even conjecture. The meal contains no gluten, and therefore would be useless as cement. It contains only a small relative portion of starch, and, when mixed with water, it separates and falls away like so much earthy matter. It may serve as food for the subterranean workers. But the young or larvæ of ants are usually fed by juices secreted by the worker-nurses.

[Leaving the ants with this example of their curious habits, we shall proceed with the author’s description of Brazilian monkeys.]

I have already mentioned that monkeys were rare in the immediate vicinity of Pará. I met with three species only in the forest near the city; they are shy animals and avoid the neighborhood of towns, where they are subject to much persecution by the inhabitants, who kill them for food. The only kind which I saw frequently was the little Midas ursulus, one of the Marmosets, a family peculiar to tropical America, and differing in many essential points of structure and habits from all other apes. They are small in size, and more like squirrels than true monkeys in their manner of climbing. The nails, except those of the hind thumbs, are long and claw-shaped like those of squirrels, and the thumbs of the fore extremities, or hands, are not opposable to the other fingers. I do not mean to convey that they have a near relationship to squirrels, which belong to the Rodents, an inferior order of mammals; their resemblance to those animals is merely a superficial one. They have two molar teeth less in each jaw than the Cebidæ, the other family of American monkeys; they agree with them, however, in the sideway position of the nostrils, a character which distinguishes both from all the monkeys of the Old World. The body is long and slender, clothed with soft hairs, and the tail, which is nearly twice the length of the trunk, is not prehensile. The hind limbs are much larger in volume than the anterior pair.

The Midas ursulus is never seen in large flocks; three or four is the greatest number observed together. It seems to be less afraid of the neighborhood of man than any other monkey. I sometimes saw it in the woods which border the suburban streets, and once I espied two individuals in a thicket behind the English consul’s house at Nazareth. Its mode of progression along the main boughs of the lofty trees is like that of squirrels; it does not ascend to the slender branches, or take those wonderful flying leaps which the Cebidæ do, whose prehensile tails and flexible hands fit them for such headlong travelling. It confines itself to the larger boughs and trunks of trees, the long nails being of great assistance to the creature, enabling it to cling securely to the bark; and it is often seen passing rapidly round the perpendicular cylindrical trunks. It is a quick, restless, timid little creature, and has a great share of curiosity, for when a person passes by under the trees along which a flock is running, they always stop for a few moments to have a stare at the intruder.

In Pará Midas ursulus is often seen in a tame state in the houses of the inhabitants. When full grown it is about nine inches long, independently of the tail, which measures fifteen inches. The fur is thick, and black in color, with the exception of a reddish-brown streak down the middle of the back. When first taken, or when kept tied up, it is very timid and irritable. It will not allow itself to be approached, but keeps retreating backward when any one attempts to coax it. It is always in a querulous humor, uttering a twittering, complaining noise; its dark, watchful eyes, expressive of distrust, observant of every movement which takes place near it. When treated kindly, however, as it generally is in the houses of the natives, it becomes very tame and familiar. I once saw one as playful as a kitten, running about the house after the negro children, who fondled it to their hearts’ content. It acted somewhat differently towards strangers, and seemed not to like them to sit in the hammock which was slung in the room, leaping up, trying to bite, and otherwise annoying them.

It is generally fed on sweet fruits, such as the banana, but it is also fond of insects, especially soft-bodied spiders and grasshoppers, which it will snap up with eagerness when within reach. The expression of countenance in these small monkeys is intelligent and pleasing. This is partly owing to the open facial angle, which is given as one of sixty degrees; but the quick movements of the head, and the way they have of inclining it to one side when their curiosity is excited, contribute very much to give them a knowing expression. Anatomists who have dissected species of Midas tell us that the brain is of a very low type as far as the absence of convolutions goes, the surface being as smooth as that of a squirrel’s. I should conclude at once that this character is an unsafe guide in judging of the mental qualities of these animals; in mobility of expression of countenance, intelligence, and general manners these small monkeys resemble the higher apes far more than they do any rodent animal with which I am acquainted.

On the upper Amazon I once saw a tame individual of the Midas leoninus, a species first described by Humboldt, which was still more playful and intelligent than the one just described. This rare and beautiful little monkey is only seven inches in length, exclusive of the tail. It is named leoninus on account of the long brown mane which depends from the neck, and which gives it very much the appearance of a diminutive lion. In the house where it was kept it was familiar with every one; its greatest pleasure seemed to be to climb about the bodies of different persons who entered. The first time I went in, it ran across the room straightway to the chair on which I sat down and climbed up to my shoulder; arrived there, it turned round and looked into my face, showing its little teeth, and chattering, as though it would say, “Well, and how do you do?” It showed more affection towards its master than towards strangers, and would climb up to his head a dozen times in the course of an hour, making a great show every time of searching there for certain animalcula.

Isidore Geoffrey St. Hilaire relates of a species of this genus that it distinguished between different objects depicted on an engraving. M. Audouin showed it the portraits of a cat and a wasp; at these it became much terrified; whereas at the sight of a figure of a grasshopper or beetle it precipitated itself on the picture, as if to seize the objects there represented.