-enduring Hercules has hitherto clung.
On their attaining the point selected, he at length unwinds his tail,
and swings downwards--with a force which seems sufficient to dislocate
the limbs of those holding on above--and now becomes the lowest in the
line. The force with which he has descended enables him to swing
towards the side which his comrades have reached, and to grasp the
trunk, up which he also climbs, till his neighbour can catch hold of it.
He follows his example, till all, one after the other, have grasped it:
and thus they perform an operation which the most renowned of human
athletes would find it difficult to imitate.

A troop will cross a gap in the forest in the same way, rather than
venture down from the leafy heights they find it safest to occupy. When
compelled to descend to the ground, they scuttle over it in the most
awkward manner--their long limbs straggling out, and their tails in vain
seeking some object to grasp. On these occasions the spider-monkey
turns its hind-feet inwards, and thus walks on the outer sides, while
the fore-paws are twisted outward; thus throwing the whole of its weight
upon their inner edges. It is when thus seen that the appropriateness
of the name given to it is more especially observed. When hard-pressed,
however, the knowing little animal, finding no bough round which to coil
its tail, rears itself up on its hind-limbs, and balances itself by
curling up its tail in the form of the letter S, as high as its head;
thus--by altering the centre of gravity--being enabled to got over the
ground in a posture such as no other member of its tribe can maintain.
It will thus run on towards some friendly stem or low-hanging bough,
which it seizes with its lithe and prehensile limb, and joyfully swings
itself up in its usual monkey fashion, quickly disappearing amid the
foliage.

The ordinary size of the coaita's body is about a foot from the nose to
the root of the tail, while the tail itself is rather more than two feet
in length.

MACACO BARRIGUDO.

Seated among the boughs may often be seen, in the forests of the Upper
Amazon, a number of large, stout-bodied, fat-paunched monkeys, with long
flexible tails, furnished underneath with a naked palm, like the hand,
for grasping. Their faces are black and wrinkled, their foreheads low,
and eyebrows projecting; their features bearing a wonderful resemblance
to those of weather-beaten old negroes. The heads of some are covered