ger than the "Mexican hog," and, too
thick-headed to understand danger, is a formidable antagonist. The
raposa is seen only on the Middle Amazon, and very rarely there. It has
a long tapering muzzle, small ears, bushy tail, and grayish hair. It
takes to the water, for the one we saw at Tabatinga was caught while
crossing the Amazon. Fawn-colored pumas, spotted jaguars, black tigers,
tiger-cats--all members of the graceful feline family--inhabit all parts
of the valley, but are seldom seen. The puma, or panther, is more common
on the Pacific side of the Andes. The jaguar[177] is the fiercest and
most powerful animal in South America. It is marked like the
leopard--roses of black spots on a yellowish ground; but they are
angular instead of rounded, and have a central dot. There are also
several black streaks across the breast, which easily distinguish it
from its transatlantic representative. It is also longer than the
leopard; indeed, Humboldt says he saw a jaguar "whose length surpassed
that of any of the tigers of India which he had seen in the collections
of Europe." The jaguar frequents the borders of the rivers and lagunes,
and its common prey is the capybara. It fears the peccari. The night air
is alive with bats of many species, the most prominent one being the
_Dysopes perotis_, which measures two feet from tip to tip of the wings.
If these Cheiropters are as impish as they look, and as blood-thirsty as
some travelers report, it is singular that Bates and Waterton, though
residing for years in the country, and ourselves, though sleeping for
months unprotected, were unmolested.

[Footnote 176: Large rats abound on the Marnanon, but they are not
American.]

[Footnote 177: The Tupi word for dog is _yaguara_, and for wolf,
_yagua-men_, or old dog.]

[Illustration: Jaguar.]

About forty species of monkeys, or one half of the New World forms,
inhabit the Valley of the Amazon. Wallace, in a residence of four years,
saw twenty-one species--seven with prehensile and fourteen with
non-prehensile tails. They all differ from the apes of the other
hemisphere. While those of Africa and Asia (Europe has only one) have
opposable thumbs on the fore feet as well as hind, uniformly ten molar
teeth in each jaw, as in man, and generally cheek-pouches and naked
collosities, the American monkeys arc destitute of the two latter
characteristics. None of them are terrestrial, like the baboon; all
(save the marmosets) have twenty-four