Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/273

 my old woman; you're an angel, a flower, a good affectionate old creature," and so forth. Immediately the poor monkey ceased its wailing, and soon after came over to where the man sat. The disposition of the Coaitá is mild in the extreme: it has none of the painful, restless vivacity of its kindred, the Cebi, and no trace of the surly, untameable temper of its still nearer relatives, the Mycetes, or howling monkeys. It is, however, an arrant thief, and shows considerable cunning in pilfering small articles of clothing, which it conceals in its sleeping place. The natives of the Upper Amazons procure the Coaitá, when full grown, by shooting it with the blowpipe and poisoned darts, and restoring life by putting a little salt (the antidote to the Urarí poison with which the darts are tipped) in its mouth. The animals thus caught become tame forthwith. Two females were once kept at the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, and Geoffrey St. Hilaire relates of them that they rarely quitted each other, remaining most part of the time in close embrace, folding their tails round one another's bodies. They took their meals together; and it was remarked on such occasions, when the friendship of animals is put to a hard test, that they never quarrelled or disputed the possession of a favourite fruit with each other.

The neighbourhood of Obydos was rich in insects. In the broad alleys of the forest a magnificent butterfly of the genus Morpho, six to eight inches in expanse, the Morpho Hecuba, was seen daily gliding along at a height of twenty feet or more from the ground. Amongst the lower trees and bushes numerous kinds of