Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/119

 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.

Although monkeys are now rare in a wild state near Pará, a great number may be seen semi-domesticated in the city. The Brazilians are fond of pet animals. Monkeys, however, have not been known to breed in captivity in this country. I counted, in a short time, thirteen different species, whilst walking about the Pará streets, either at the doors or windows of houses, or in the native canoes. Two of them I did not meet with afterwards in any other part of the country. One of these was the well-known Hapale Jacchus, a little creature resembling a kitten, banded with black and gray all over the body and tail, and having a fringe of long white hairs surrounding the ears. It was seated on the shoulder of a young mulatto girl, as she was walking along the street, and I was told had been captured in the island of Marajo. The other was a species of Cebus, with a remarkably large head. It had ruddy-brown fur, paler on the face, but presenting a blackish tuft on the top of the forehead.

In the wet season serpents are common in the neighbourhood of Pará. One morning, in April, 1849, after a night of deluging rain, the lamplighter, on his rounds to extinguish the lamps, knocked me up to show me a boa-constrictor he had just killed in the Rua St. Antonio,