Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/343

 very flexible towards the tip, and is used to twine round branches in climbing. I did not see or hear anything of this animal whilst residing on the Lower Amazons, but on the banks of the Upper river, from the Teffé to Peru, it appeared to be rather common. It is nocturnal in its habits, like the owl-faced monkeys, although, unlike them, it has a bright, dark eye. I once saw it in considerable numbers, when on an excursion with an Indian companion along the low Ygapó shores of the Teffé, about twenty miles above Ega. We slept one night at the house of a native family living in the thick of the forest, where a festival was going on, and there being no room to hang our hammocks under shelter, on account of the number of visitors, we lay down on a mat in the open air, near a shed which stood in the midst of a grove of fruit-trees and pupunha palms. After midnight, when all became still, after the uproar of holiday-making, as I was listening to the dull, fanning sound made by the wings of impish hosts of vampire bats crowding round the Cajú trees, a rustle commenced from the side of the woods, and a troop of slender, long-tailed animals were seen against the clear moonlit sky, taking flying leaps from branch to branch through the grove. Many of them stopped at the pupunha trees, and the hustling, twittering, and screaming, with sounds of falling fruits, showed how they were employed. I thought, at first, they were Nyctipitheci, but they proved to be Jupurás, for the owner of the house early next morning caught a young one, and gave it to me. I kept this as a pet animal for several weeks, feeding it on bananas and mandioca