Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/69

 plainant. It appeared that some feiticeira had sprinkled a quantity of the acrid juice of a large arum on her linen as it was hanging out to dry, and it was thought this had caused a serious eruption under which the lady suffered.

I seldom met with any of the larger animals in these excursions. We never saw a mammal of any kind on the campos; but tracks of three species were seen occasionally besides those of the Jaguar: these belonged to a small tiger cat, a deer, and an opossum; all of which animals must have been very rare, and probably nocturnal in their habits, with the exception of the deer. I saw in the woods, on one occasion, a small flock of monkeys, and once had an opportunity of watching the movements of a sloth. The monkeys belonged to a very pretty and rare species, a kind of marmoset, I think the Hapale humeralifer described by Geoffroy St. Hilaire. I did not succeed in obtaining a specimen, but saw a living example afterwards in the possession of a shopkeeper at Santarem. It seems to occur nowhere else except in the dry woods bordering the campos in the interior parts of Brazil. The colours of its fur are beautifully varied; the fore part of the body is white, with the hands gray; the hind part black, with the rump and underside reddish-tawny; the tail is banded with gray and black. Its face is partly naked and flesh-coloured, and the ears are fringed with long white hairs. The specimen was not more than eight inches in length, exclusive of the tail. Altogether I thought it the prettiest species of its family I had yet seen. One would mistake it, at first sight, for a kitten, from its small size, varied