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Updated: June 4, 2025
Turning to the Old World, the males of Hylobates hoolock are always black, with the exception of a white band over the brows; the females vary from whity-brown to a dark tint mixed with black, but are never wholly black. On Mycetes, Rengger, ibid. s. 14; and Brehm, 'Thierleben, B. i. s. 96, 107. On Ateles Desmarest, 'Mammalogie, p. 75. On Hylobates, Blyth, 'Land and Water, 1867, p. 135.
On the following morning they were very cross and dismal; they held their aching heads with both hands, and wore a most pitiable expression: when beer or wine was offered them, they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons. Brehm, 'Thierleben, B. i. 1864, s. 75, 86. On the Ateles, s. 105.
"Marimondas," he said. They belong to the genus Ateles, so called because they want the thumb, and are therefore imperfect or unfinished as regards the hands. But what the ateles want in hands is supplied by another member the tail, and this they have to all perfection. It is to them a fifth hand, and apparently more useful than the other four.
Pieces of rotten wood, husks, and nuts come dropping down, and we may see the boughs alive with numberless dark-haired little creatures, their long lithe tails twisting and twirling, their active limbs stretched out in all directions, as they make their way through the forest. We recognise them as a troop of ateles, migrating to some other district, or on some expedition in search of food.
Every now and again, they flung out their great tails, in hopes of grasping something that would help them along; and even a large weed was a welcome support to them. On the ground they were evidently "out of their element." In fact, the ateles rarely descend from the trees, which are their natural habitat.
It assists them very materially in travelling through the tree-tops. They use it to bring objects nearer them. They use it to suspend themselves in a state of repose, and thus suspended, they sleep nay more, thus suspended, they often die! Of all the monkey tribe the ateles are those that have most prehensile power in their tails.
They were nearly of the same size, but more of the shape of the "ateles;" and their long tails, naked underneath and curling downward near the points, showed that, like them too, they possessed prehensile power in that member. Such was the fact, for they were "howling monkeys;" and some species of these can use the tail almost as adroitly as the "ateles" themselves.
Its body is entirely different from the "ateles" monkeys, being stouter and covered with a fuller coat of hair; and its tail is large and bushy, without any prehensile power. It is, in fact, less of a tree monkey than the ateles, although it also lives among the branches. The most striking peculiarities of the Capuchin are its head and face.
As for the Indians, it seems with them to be "all fish," &c.; and they devour all kinds indifferently, whether they be "howlers," or "ateles," or "capuchins," or "ouistitis," or "sajous," or "sakis," or whatever sort. In fact, among many Indian tribes, monkey stands in the same place that mutton does in England; and they consider it their staple article of flesh meat. Indeed, in these parts, no other animal is so common as the monkey; and, with the exception of birds and fish, they have little chance of getting any other species of animal food. The best "Southdown" would, perhaps, be as distasteful to them as monkey meat would be to you; so here again we are met by that same eternal proverb, Chacun
With Pithecia leucocephala the young likewise resemble the females, which are brownish-black above and light rusty-red beneath, the adult males being black. The ruff of hair round the face of Ateles marginatus is tinted yellow in the male and white in the female.
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