nha consists of grains of similar size and appearance to the tapioca
of our shops; both are products of the same root, tapioca being the
pure starch, and farinha the starch mixed with woody fibre, the latter
ingredient giving it a yellowish color. It was amusing to see some of
the dwarfs, the smallest members of their family, staggering along,
completely hidden under their load. The baskets, which were on a high
table, were entirely covered with ants, many hundreds of whom were
employed in snipping the dry leaves which served as lining. This
produced the rustling sound which had at first disturbed us. My servant
told me that they would carry off the whole contents of the two baskets
(about two bushels) in the course of the night if they were not driven
off, so we tried to exterminate them by killing them with our wooden
clogs. It was impossible, however, to prevent fresh hosts coming in as
fast as we killed their companions. They returned the next night, and I
was then obliged to lay trains of gun-powder along their line and blow
them up. This, repeated many times, at last seemed to intimidate them,
for we were free from their visits during the remainder of my residence
at the place.

What they did with the hard dry grains of mandioca I was never able to
ascertain, and cannot even conjecture. The meal contains no gluten, and
therefore would be useless as cement. It contains only a small relative
portion of starch, and, when mixed with water, it separates and
falls away like so much earthy matter. It may serve as food for the
subterranean workers. But the young or larvae of ants are usually fed
by juices secreted by the worker-nurses.

[Leaving the ants with this example of their curious habits, we
shall proceed with the author's description of Brazilian
monkeys.]

I have already mentioned that monkeys were rare in the immediate
vicinity of Para. I met with three species only in the forest near the
city; they are shy animals and avoid the neighborhood of towns, where
they are subject to much persecution by the inhabitants, who kill them
for food. The only kind which I saw frequently was the little _Midas
ursulus_, one of the Marmosets, a family peculiar to tropical America,
and differing in many essential points of structure and habits from all
other apes. They are small in size, and more like squirrels than true
monkeys in their manner of climbing. The nails, except those of the hind
thumbs, are long a