ATCHEEN, or ACHEEN, the capital of the kingdom of the same name in Sumatra, is situated at the northwestern_extremity of the island in 5° 35′ N. lat., and 95° 45′ E. long.

The town stands on a river which empties itself by several channels near to Atcheen-head, and is about a league from the sea, where the shipping lie in a roadstead, which is securely sheltered by several small islands. The river having a bar at its mouth, with a depth of no more than four feet at low water during spring-tides, only the small vessels of the country can enter; and even of these many are prevented from passing over the bar during the dry

monsoon.

The town, which is said to be populous and to contain 8000 houses, is situated on a plain in a wide valley formed like an amphitheatre by ranges of lofty hills. The houses are all detached; they are built of bamboo and rough timber, and are mostly raised on piles some feet above the ground in order to guard against the effects of inundations. The wealth of the inhabitants has occasioned the erection of a greater number of mosques and other public buildings than are usually seen in towns of similar magnitude in the Malayan peninsula. The palace of the Sultan is built more with a view to strength than beauty, and is surrounded by a moat and strong walls. Near to the gate are several pieces of brass ordnance of an extraordinary size. Most of these are of Portuguese make, but two among them are English, and were sent as a present by King James the First to the Sultan of Atcheen; the bore of one of these pieces is eighteen inches, and of the other twenty-two inches diameter.

Owing to the plan of its construction, and the luxuriant growth of the numerous trees which surround and intersect it, the town, when seen from a short distance, has a very pleasing and picturesque appearance. The country beyond it exhibits a high degree of cultivation, and contains many small villages with white mosques, which add to the beauty of the scene. (See Marsden's History of Sumatra and Forrest's Voyage to the Mergui Archipelago.) ATCHUJEFF, ATCHUK, or ATCHU, an island on the eastern shore of the Sea of Azof, one side of it being formed by the Sea of that name, and the other three sides oy branches of the Kuban. It lies to the N.E. of Taman, or Phanagoria, but is more mountainous and as full of swamps as that island. Among the spots of note upon it are a castle with a port, also called Atchujeff, the fortifications of which are of wood; Kirman, on the principal branch of the Kuban, which was the most considerable place in this part of the world in the fourteenth century; and Cozadji, a small town on the Kumli-Kuban. The inhabitants of the island, who are Cossacks of the Black Sea, consist wholly of fishermen, and despatch large quantities of sturgeons in a dried state, caviar, fish-fat, and isinglass, to Constantinople. It is comprised at present in the Russian government of Tauria.

A'TELES, in zoology, a genus of Sapajous, or American monkeys, formed by M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and presenting numerous and remarkable modifications of organic structure, which readily distinguish them from all other groups of quadrumanes. The most prominent characters of the genus consist in their long, attenuated, and powerfully prehensile tails; fore-hands either entirely deprived of thumbs, or having only a very small rudiment of that organ; and their dental system, which, like that of all the American quadrumanes, consists of two molar teeth in each jaw, one on each side, more than are found either in man, or in the kindred genera of the old world. The first and last of these modifications are common to the ateles and other American genera; the second is shared with them only by the colobi, a small African genus, consisting only of two species, neither of which has been observed by any zoologist since the days of Pennant, and with whose other characters we are very imperfectly acquainted. The ateles are further distinguished by their small round heads, corpulent bodies, and remarkably long slender limbs, which characteristics giving these animals much of the general appearance of a spider, have procured for them the appellation of spider-monkeys, by which they are commonly known. Like all the other quadrumanes of the new world, they are destitute of cheek pouches and callosities, characters which approximate them in some measure to the real apes. The skull of the ateles

keys; the forehead also is more elevated, and the muzzle less prominent. The eyes are widely separated from one another by the base of the nose; the nostrils open laterally, and are separated by a thick cartilaginous partition; the ear only differs from that of man in having no inferior lobe; the mouth is small; the lips thin and extensible; and the hair generally long, coarse, and of a glossy appearance.

But the organs of locomotion chiefly distinguish the ateles. The anterior extremities, in particular, are by their length and the slenderness of their form out of all proportion with the other parts; they are in general, as above observed, destitute of thumbs; or if some species are provided with this organ, it is only in a rudimentary form, and consists merely of a flat nail, or at most of a single joint. On the posterior extremities, on the contrary, the thumb is largely developed, placed far back towards the heel, and is completely opposable to the fingers. But these animals possess, in their long and muscular tail, an organ of prehension much more powerful than the other extremities; it executes, in fact, all the functions of a fifth limb, though probably, on account of its distance from the seat of sensation, it is not endowed with a very delicate sense of touch. For six or seven inches from the point it is naked and callous on the under surface; and it is by this portion that the animal hangs suspended from the branches, or swings itself from tree to tree with an ease and velocity almost incredible.

Their entire organization is adapted exclusively to an arboreal life; on the earth nothing can be more awkward and embarrassed than their motions. They trail themselves along with a slow and vacillating gait, sometimes using their long fore-arms as crutches, and resting upon their half-closed fists whilst they project the body and hind legs forward; at other times walking in a crouching position on the hind legs only, balanced by the long arms and tail, which are elevated in front and rear respectively, and always ready to take advantage of any object by which to avail themselves of their natural powers of progression. But in proportion to their embarrassment on a plain surface is their dexterity and agility among the trees of their native forests. Here they live in numerous troops, mutually support one another in danger, beat and expel the less favourably organised sakis from the vicinity of their cantonments, and exercise a perfect tyranny over all the other arboreal mammals of their neighbourhood. Though leaves and wild fruits compose the principal part of their food, yet they do not reject flesh, but hunt after insects and the eggs and young of birds, and are even said to adopt the stratagem of fishing for crabs with their long tails. They are exceedingly intelligent, easily domesticated, and soon become strongly attached to those who treat them kindly: they exhibit none of the petulance and insatiable curiosity of the common monkeys; their character, on the contrary, is grave, and approaches even to melancholy; but if their passions are less violent, and more difficult to excite, their affections are infinitely stronger; and if they are without the amusing tricks of the monkeys, so likewise are they without their fickleness and mischief.

Dampier relates, that when a troop of ateles have occasion to pass any of the larger rivers of South America, they select a situation in which the trees are highest and project farthest over the stream; then mounting to the topmost branches, they form a long chain by grasping one another's tails successively. This chain being allowed to hang freely at the lower end, whilst it is suspended from the top,, is put in motion, and successively swung backwards and forwards till it acquires an impetus sufficient to carry it over to the opposite bank. When this is accomplished, the animal at the lower end catches the first branch which comes within his reach, and mounts to the highest, where as soon as he is firmly attached, the other end of the chain is permitted to swing, and thus the whole troop are passed over. The ateles, as well indeed as all the other American quadrumanes, are esteemed as an article of food by the native Indians; and even Europeans, whom curiosity or necessity has induced to taste it, report their flesh to le white, juicy, and agreeable. The only thing disgusting about it is a strong resemblance which the whole body, and particularly the head and hands, bear to those of a young infant. Nor is it without being strongly disposed to question the nature of the act, that European sportsmen, unac

customed to shooting monkeys, witness for the first time the dying struggles of these animals. Without uttering a complaint, they silently watch the blood as it flows from the wound, from time to time turning their eyes upon the sportsman with an expression of reproach which cannot be misinterpreted: some travellers even go so far as to assert that the companions of the wounded individual will not only assist him to climb beyond the reach of further danger, but will even chew leaves and apply them to the wound for the purpose of stopping the hemorrhage. The following species of ateles have been distinguished and characterised by naturalists and travellers:

1. The Quata (A. paniscus, Geoff.), or, as the French write it, coaïta, is a large species, covered with long coarse hair, of a glossy black colour; the belly is protuberant, the head small and round, the limbs long and slender, the forehands entirely deprived of thumbs, the tail robust and powerful, the eyes and cheeks deeply sunk, and the face copper colour. On the back and outsides of the limbs the hair is very long and thick, but the belly and groins are nearly naked, and the mamma of the females are placed in the armpits. The hair of the head is directed forwards, and the ears, concealed beneath it, differ from those of the human species only in having no inferior lobe. This species is very common in the woods of Surinam and Brazil. It is active and intelligent, and unites considerable prudence and penetration to great gentleness of disposition. They go in large companies, and when they meet with a man or any animal which is strange to them, come down to the lower branches of the trees to examine them, and having satisfied their curiosity, begin to pelt them with sticks, and endeavour to frighten them away. They cannot leap, but exhibit the most surprising agility in swinging from tree to tree. Acosta, in his History of the West Indies, relates the following anecdote of a quata which belonged to the Governor of Carthagena They sent him,' says he, to the tavern for wine, putting the pot in one hand and the money in the other; they could not possibly get the money out of his hand before his pot was full of wine. If any children met him in the street, and threw stones at him, he would set his pot down and cast stones against the children, till he had assured his way, then would he return to carry home his pot. And what is more.

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has not the glossy appearance of the quata s covering. The face is nearly naked, and tan-coloured; the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, and callous part of the tail, are violet black, and the whole skin beneath the hair appears to be of the same hue. According to Humboldt, who discovered this species on the banks of the Amazon, the male and female differ in the colour of the circle which surrounds the face, and which he describes as yellow in the former and white in the latter. A young male, examined by M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, did not present this difference; but, as in many other instances, it is probable that the young males of this species have at first the colours of the female, and that it is only on attaining their adult state that they assume those marks which distinguish their sex. It appears also that individuals differ considerably in the extent as well as the colour of this circle. The specimens described by MM. Humboldt and Geoffroy had it entirely surrounding the face; that examined by M. F. Cuvier had only the hair of the cheeks and forehead white; and, finally, there is at present a female in the gardens of the Zoological Society of London, in which the latter part alone differs in colour from the rest of the head. In this individual the hair of the forehead is much shorter and more thinly scattered than on other parts; it covers the whole extent of the forehead, is turned upwards, and is of a silvery-grey colour, whilst that of the surrounding parts is deep black. The disposition and manners differ in no respect from those of the quata. 3. The Cayou (A. ater, F. Cuv.) is considered by MM. Geoffroy and Desmarest as a variety of the quata; but M. F. Cuvier, from observations made upon the living animal, has recognised and described it as a distinct species. It must however be confessed, that it approaches so nearly to the quata as to render further observations necessary to determine the question of their specific difference. The size, form, and colour are the same in both, and the only marked distinction reported by M. Cuvier consists in the colour of the face, which is black in the cayou and copper-coloured in the quata. The hair,' says M. Cuvier, is long, and of a harsh silky quality. It is rather shorter on the head and tail than on the rest of the body, where it falls backwards in the ordinary way, but on the head it is directed forward, and falls over the face."

4. The Marimonda (A. Belzebub, Geoff.) has the top of the head, the back, sides, and external surface of the extremities black, and all the under parts, the cheeks, throat, breast, belly, inside of the limbs, and under surface of the tail for its first half, white, with a slight shade of yellow. The naked parts are violet black, except immediately about the eyes, which are surrounded by a flesh-coloured circle.

Coaches [The Quuta. Ateles paniscus.] although he was a good b bber of wine, yet he would never touch it till leave was given him.'

2. The Chuva (A. marginatus, Geoff.) closely resembles the quata in physiognomy, size, and proportions; the quality and colour of the hair are also the same in both, except that the face of the chuva is surrounded with a rim of white, which, on the forehead particularly, is broad, and directed upwards, so as to encounter the hair of the occiput, and form a low crest on the top of the head. The hair of the fore-arm is directed partially towards the elbow; like that of the body it is long and coarse, and though perfectly black,

[The Marimonda. Ateles Belzebub.j This species, according to Humboldt, replaces the common quata in Spanish Guyana, where it is extremely common, and is eaten by the Indians. It is, says this celebrated traveller, an animal very slow in its movements, and of a gentle, melancholy, and timid character; if it occasionally bites, it does so only in its fits of terror. The marimondas unite in great companies, and form the most grotesquo groups. All their attitudes announce the extremity of sloth

I have frequently seen them, when exposed to the heat of a tropical sun, throw their heads backwards, turn their eyes upwards, bend their arms over their backs, and remain motionless in this extraordinary position for many hours together. The young of this species appear to have the upper parts of the body mixed slightly with grey, but this mixture gradually disappears as it grows towards maturity, till the adult animal presents the uniform black above and white below, as already described.

5. The A. melanocheir (Geoff.), of which we are unacquainted with the native Indian name, is also a distinct species. The head, members, and tail are black, or dark brown, on the superior surface; the internal face of the arms and fore-arms as far as the wrists, and of the thighs and legs, the under surface of the tail, the throat, breast, belly, and sides of the hips, are white or silvery grey; the shoulders are yellowish grey, and the remainder of the upper parts of the body, as well as the whiskers, are pure grey the four hands and the naked part of the tail are black, as are also the face, the cheeks, and the under half of the nose; but round the mouth and eyes is flesh-coloured. The hair is uniformly of a silky quality: that on the black and white parts is of the same colour throughout, but on the grey parts it is annulated with alternate rings of black and white. This species, as well as all those hitherto described, is entirely deprived of the fore-thumb, and does not even exhibit a rudiment that organ. Only a single individual has been observed alive; its manners are the same as those of the ateles in general, but its habitat has not been definitely determined. A specimen preserved in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes presents a distribution of colours which differs in some degree from what is here described; but it is not improbable that the difference arises in a great measure from the fading which naturally takes place in the colours of skins which have been long mounted and exposed to the action of the atmosphere, if indeed it be more than an accidental or individual distinction.

6. The A. Arachnoïdes, or Brown Quata, as it is called by Baron Cuvier, partakes, in fact, very much of the characters and appearance of the common quata, from which it is principally distinguished by its uniform reddish-brown colour. This species, when full grown, measures rather better than two feet in length; the tail is about a couple of inches longer than the body; the fore legs are one foot nine inches long, the hind legs one foot eight, and the hand six inches. The hair is short, fine, and soft, and that of the forehead is directed backwards, contrary to what is usually observed in the other ateles; the back and upper parts of the body are, generally speaking, well furnished, but the breast, belly, and groins are nearly naked, or at least but sparingly covered with scattered hairs, of a longer and coarser quality than those on other parts; the root of the tail is rather thick and bushy, but it is gradually attenuated towards the point, and for the last ten inches, naked underneath. The general colour is uniform chestnut-brown, the first of these colours becoming clearer and more intense upon the head, and more especially round the eyes: the forehead is bordered by a circle of stiff coarse black hairs, beneath which a semicircle of light silvery grey passes over the eyes in the form of brows, and becomes gradually more and more obscure, till it is finally lost in the uniform reddish-brown of the temples. The face is naked and fleshcoloured, the under parts of the body of a silvery grey slightly tinged with yellow, with the exception of the abdomen, which, as well as the inner surface of the thighs, and the naked stripe underneath the tail, are of a bright red colour. The manners and habits of this species are unknown in its native forests: those which have been observed in a state of confinement exhibited all the gentleness and listless apathy of character which distinguish the ateles from the common monkeys of South America, as eminently as they do the gibbons of the Indian isles from the other quadrumanes of the Old World. Except in the total want of the thumb on the anterior extremities, the A. Arachnoïdes approaches very nearly to the following species, and appears, indeed, to be intermediate between it and the common quata.

7. The mono, or miriki (A. hypoxanthus, Kuhl) inhabits the forests in the interior of Brazil, and, as has just been observed, approaches very nearly to the A. Arachnoïdes, as well in the colour of its fur as in the general form and proportions of its body and members; but it is readily distinguished from that species as well as from all

is more uniformly covered with hair than in the generality of the other species, being naked only about the region of the eyes; the hairs which compose the eyebrows are long, black, and directed upwards; the cheeks, lips, nose, and a narrow line descending from the forehead, are covered with short hairs of a pale yellowish-white colour; the chin also is furnished with short hair of the same colour and quality. but intermixed with thinly scattered long black hairs, forming a species of beard, and extending over the upper lip in the form of thin moustaches. The ears are small and nearly concealed by the hair of the head, which though not very long, is thickly furnished, and of a pale grey colour slightly tinged with yellow. The whole body and members are of a uniform greyish fawn colour, only differing in the greater degree of intensity which distinguishes the back and upper parts from those beneath, and in the lighter greș tinge which predominates on the extremities. The backs of the fingers are hairy down to the very nails, and there is a rudiment of a thumb on the fore feet, covered with a short compressed nail.

The mono was discovered by Prince Maximilian of Neuwied, during his travels in Brazil. It is the largest species of the quadrumanes which inhabit the part of the country through which that scientific traveller passed, and though sufficiently common in particular districts, appears to have upon the whole but a very limited geographical range. Its hide is said to be more impervious to moisture than any other description of fur known in that part of the world, and for this reason the Brazilian sportsmen have cases of the skin of the mono made to protect the locks of! their guns from the rain.

8. The chameck (A. subpentadactylus, Geoffroy), the last species of the genus distinctly known at present, resembles the mono in having a small rudimentary thumb on the anterior extremities, but it is without a nail, and in other respects the two animals are sufficiently distinguished by their difference of colour and habitat. The chameek indeed approaches more nearly in external form and ap pearance to the quata than to any other of its congeners, being furnished with a similar coat of long dense hair, of au intense and uniform black colour; but it may be readily distinguished from that species by the presence of the rudimentary thumb on the anterior members, as well as by its