Volume 2, Plate XXVI / Mammalia (Mammals)

Cacajao

Pithecia melanocephala

Discovered by Humboldt and Bonpland and exceedingly rare, this diminutive monkey is scarcely a foot long with a very short tail, the round naked head dull black like an old negro’s, the body clothed in long, shining yellowish-brown hair, the hands black with very long fingers. A voracious eater of all fruit, it is weak, inactive, mild, and easily frightened, trembling at the sight of a crocodile or serpent, and lives in troops on the Cassiquaire and Rio Negro.