[Illustration: THE BALD UAKARI.]
{179}HABITS.--"This scarlet-faced monkey," says Mr. Bates, "lives in
forests, which are inundated during the greater part of the year, and is
never known to descend to the ground; the shortness of its tail is,
therefore, no sign of terrestrial habits, as it is in the Macaques and
Baboons of the Old World.... It seems to be found in no other part of
America than the banks of the Japurá near its mouth; and even there it is
confined to the western side of the river. It lives in small troops amongst
the crowns of the lofty trees, living on fruits of various kinds. Hunters
say it is very nimble in its motions, but it is not much given to leaping,
preferring to run up and down the larger boughs in travelling from tree to
tree. The mother, as in other species of the Monkey order, carries her
young on her back. Individuals are obtained alive by shooting them with the
blow-pipe and arrows tipped with diluted Urari poison. They run a
considerable distance after being pierced, and it requires an experienced
hunter to track them. He is considered the most expert who can keep pace
with a wounded one and catch it in his arms when it falls exhausted. A
pinch of salt, the antidote to the poison, is then put in its mouth, and
the creature revives.... Adult Uakarís, caught in the way just described,
very rarely become tame. They are peevish and sulky, resisting all attempts
to coax them, and biting anyone who ventures within reach. They have no
particular cry, even when in their native woods; in captivity they are
quite silent. In the course of a few days or weeks, if not carefully
attended to, they fall into a listless condition, refuse food, and die....
The bright scarlet of its face is, in health, spread over the features up
to the roots of the hair on the forehead and temples, and down to the neck,
including the flabby cheeks, which hang down below the jaws. {180}The
animal, in this condition, looks at a short distance as though someone had
laid a thick coat of red paint on its countenance.... After seeing much of
the morose disposition of the Uakarí, I was not a little surprised one day,
at a friend's house, to find an extremely lively and familiar individual of
the species. It ran from an inner chamber straight towards me after I had
sat down on a chair, climbed my legs and nestled in my lap, turning round
and looking up with the usual Monkey's grin after it had made itself
comfortable. It was a young animal, which had been taken when its mother
was shot with a poisoned arrow; its teeth were incomplete, and the face was
pale and mottled, the glowing scarlet hue not supervening in these animals
before mature age; it had also a few long black hairs on the eyebrows and
lips. The {181}frisky little fellow had been reared in the house among the
children, and allowed to run about freely...." This species is rare, even
in the limited district which it inhabits. A Government official sent six
of his most skilful Indians, who were absent hunting for three weeks before
they obtained twelve specimens.
[Illustration: Fig. 8.
Map of part of the basin of the Amazons to show the distribution of the
Uakarí Monkeys. (Forbes, P. Z. S., 1880, p. 647.)
Supposed area of ''B. melanocephalus'', ''B. calvus'', and ''B.
rubicundus'' shown by shading.]
In reference to the singularly restricted range of these Uakarís, Mr.
Wallace's observations in his paper "On the Monkeys of the Amazon," before
the Zoological Society of London, are of great interest.
"During my residence," he says, "in the Amazon district, I took every
opportunity of determining the limits of species, and I soon found that the
Amazon, the Rio Negro, and the Madeira formed the limits beyond which
certain species never passed. The native hunters are perfectly acquainted
with this fact, and always cross over the river when they want to procure
particular animals, which are found even on the river's bank on one side,
but never by any chance on the other. On approaching the sources of the
rivers, they cease to be a boundary, and most of the species are found on
both sides of them. Thus several Guiana species come up to the Rio Negro
and Amazon, but do not pass them; Brazilian species, on the contrary, reach
but do not pass the Amazon to the north. Several Ecuador species from the
east of the Andes reach down into the tongue of land between the Rio Negro
and Upper Amazon, but pass neither of those rivers, and others from Peru
are bounded on the north by the Upper Amazon, and on the east by the
Madeira. Thus there are four districts whose boundaries on one side are
determined by the rivers I have mentioned. In going up the Rio Negro, the
difference on the two sides of the river is very remarkable.
{182}"In the lower part of the river you will find on the north the
_Jacchus_ [_Hapale_] _bicolor_, and the _Brachyurus couxui_ [_Pithecia
satanas_], and on the south the red-whiskered Pithecia. Higher up you will
find on the north the _Ateles paniscus_, and on the south a black _Jacchus_
and the _Lagothrix humboldtii_."