"I am very glad you bought those, papa," she said. "I think they will be a pleasure and amusement to us all."
"So do I," said Lucilla, "they are so pretty and graceful that I think we will all be inclined to pet them."
"So I think," said her father, "they seem to me decidedly the prettiest and most interesting species of monkey I have ever met with."
"And it is really pleasant to see how delighted the children are with their new pets," said Grandma Elsie.
"Yes," the Captain responded, with a pleased smile, "and I have no fear that they will ill-use them."
"I am sure they will be kind to them," said Violet. "They were much interested in the monkeys we saw in going about the city. I saw quite a number of various species--some pretty large, but most of them small; some at the doors or windows of houses, some in canoes on the river."
"Yes, I think we all noticed them," said her mother.
"Yes," said the Captain, "I saw several of the _midas ursulus_, a small monkey which I have read is often to be found here in Pará. It is, when full grown, only about nine inches long, exclusive of the tail, which is fifteen inches. It has thick black fur with a reddish brown streak down the middle of the back. It is said to be a timid little thing, but when treated kindly becomes very tame and familiar."
"What do monkeys eat, papa?" asked Grace.
"I have been told the little fellows are generally fed on sweet fruits, such as the banana, and that they are also fond of grasshoppers and soft-bodied spiders."
"They have some very large and busy ants in this country, haven't they, father?" asked Evelyn.
"Yes," replied the Captain. "Bates tells of some an inch and a quarter long and stout in proportion, marching in single file through the thickets. They, however, have nothing peculiar or attractive in their habits, though they are giants among ants. But he speaks of another and far more interesting species. It is a great scourge to the Brazilians, from its habit of despoiling the most valuable of their cultivated trees of their foliage. In some districts it is such a pest that agriculture is almost impossible. He goes on to say that in their first walks they were puzzled to account for mounds of earth of a different color from the surrounding soil; mounds, some of them very extensive, some forty yards in circumference, but not more than two feet high. But on making inquiries they learned that those mounds were the work of the saubas--the outworks and domes which overlie and protect the entrances to their vast subterranean galleries. On close examination, Bates found the earth of which they were made to consist of very minute granules heaped together with cement so as to form many rows of little ridges and turrets. And he learned that the difference in color from the earth around was because of the undersoil having been brought up from a considerable depth to form these mounds."