Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/332

 scarlet-face was missing, having made his escape into the forest. Two men were sent in search of him, but returned after several hours' absence without having caught sight of the runaway. We gave up the monkey for lost, until the following day, when he re-appeared on the skirts of the forest, and marched quietly down the bowsprit to his usual place on deck. He had evidently found the forests of the Rio Negro very different from those of the delta lands of the Japurá, and preferred captivity to freedom in a place that was so uncongenial to him.

A most curious fact connected with this monkey is the existence of an allied form, or brother species, in a tract of country lying to the west of its district. This differs in being clothed with red instead of white hair, and has been described by Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire (from specimens brought to Paris in 1847 by the Comte de CastlenauCastelnau [sic]) as a distinct species, under the name of Brachyurus rubicundus. It wholly replaces the white form in the western parts of the Japurá delta: that is to say, in a uniform district of country, 150 miles in length, and sixty to eighty in breadth, the eastern half is tenanted exclusively by white Uakarís, and the western half by red ones. The district, it may be mentioned, is crossed by several channels, which at the present time doubtless serve as barriers to the dispersal of monkeys, but cannot have done so for many centuries, as the position of low alluvial lands, and the direction of channels in the Amazons Valley, change considerably in the course of a few years. The red-haired Uakarí appears to be most frequently found in the