Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/114

 brown colour, and of a peaty nature. The higher grassy undulating parts of the campo had a lighter and more sandy soil. Leaving our friends, I and José took our guns and dived into the woods in search of the monkeys. As we walked rapidly along I was very near treading on a rattlesnake which lay stretched out nearly in a straight line on the bare sandy pathway. It made no movement to get out of the way, and I escaped the danger by a timely and sudden leap, being unable to check my steps in the hurried walk. We tried to excite the sluggish reptile by throwing hands-full of sand and sticks at it, but the only notice it took was to raise its ugly horny tail and shake its rattle. At length it began to move rather nimbly, when we despatched it by a blow on the head with a pole, not wishing to fire on account of alarming our game.

We saw nothing of the white Caiarára; we met, however, with a flock of the common light-brown allied species (Cebus albifrons?), and killed one as a specimen. A resident on this side of the river told us that the white kind was found further to the south, beyond Santa Cruz. The light-brown Caiarára is pretty generally distributed over the forests of the level country. I saw it very frequently on the banks of the Upper Amazons, where it was always a treat to watch a flock leaping amongst the trees, for it is the most wonderful performer in this line of the whole tribe. The troops consist of thirty or more individuals which travel in single file. When the foremost of the flock reaches the outermost branch of an unusually lofty tree, he springs forth into the air without a moment's hesitation