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VARIED MONKEY, OR MONA.

and beaten ten times an hour; sometimes it was stuffed with grapes or apples, and by dint of blows obliged to swallow unsuitable food, so that in the end it died most miserably. After this, no other cat was permitted to come within reach of the monkey.

The White-nosed Monkey, (Cercopithecus petaurista,) another of the same genus, found in Barbary, is remarkable for the modesty of its behavior, if such a vir

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and under clothes the fruits of its larceny. | tue can be ascribed to animals. Its moveIt frequently enters the court-yard, slips into the poultry-house, and taking an egg, runs away on its hind feet. In this position its appearance is singularly grotesque. It has a well-defined taste for raw eggs; it strikes the end lightly on the pavement to break the shell, enlarges the hole with its finger, and then sucks out all the substance contained in the shell, without breaking it any more. It was very fond of coffee; and upon every occasion when it could steal into the kitchen, it would rummage all the coffee-pots to get the dregs which might remain in them.

However, there was one fact that proved conclusively its lack of memory, and also that the greater part of its actions were irreflective. When a light was placed upon the table, the monkey immediately approached, and taking the flame for something eatable, would stretch out its nose and carry the light to its tongue. When burned, it would utter frightful cries, and run away; but this unhappy experiment was lost upon it, and would be tried over again the next evening, and perhaps not more than an hour afterward.

When its master purchased it, the little creature was very gentle; but during the three years that it remained in his possession, I thought I could perceive that, as it grew older, it became more mischievous. A poor cat became its victim. It was carried and dragged about everywhere by the monkey. It was caressed

ments are full of grace and docility, and its vivacity and agility are so great, that when it springs from tree to tree, it seems to fly rather than leap. Its favorite attitude in repose is very singular: seated with its head resting upon one of its hands, and its pensive eye seeming to gaze into vacuity, it remains so for a long time, as if wrapped in the most profound meditation. And who knows? Perhaps it is dreaming of its native valley; and its imagination carries it back to the shade of the gigantic baobab, where it loved so much to play, and where in its infancy its mother directed its first leaps; or, perhaps, in its melancholy, it is mourning over the chain which holds it in a foreign land! Whatever it may be, it is difficult for one who has seen this beautiful creature in the attitude here described, to believe that animals never think.

The first species in the genus Semnopithecus is the Entellus Monkey. This species varies much in color with its age. Its chin is graced with a little yellowish beard, and its throat is bare. Its pelt is of a grayish white, mingled with black hairs upon the back and limbs, and orange-colored upon its sides and breast. The face and hands are black, and the tail nearly black, terminated by a tuft. In its youth its pelt is all nearly white and its tail a reddish gray. It is seventeen inches in length exclusive of the tail.

The Hoonuman, as it is called by the natives, inhabits Bengal. It offers a sin

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gular example of the metamorphosis which we had occasion to notice with reference to the Pongo. In early youth it has a not very prominent muzzle, a large forehead, and an elevated, rounded cranium. Then this animal brings in play quite extensive intellectual faculties; it has a wonderful penetration to judge of what will prove agreeable or hurtful to itself; it is readily tamed, is quite gentle, and becomes attached to its master to a certain degree; and uses only stratagem and address to procure the satisfaction of its wishes. By degrees as it grows old its forehead becomes obliterated, its muzzle acquires a considerable prominence, and its cranium diminishes much in capacity. Its moral qualities are degraded in the same proportion. Apathy takes the place of penetration; it seeks solitude, it employs force in the place of stratagem, and the least opposition excites a ferocious malice and an anger bordering upon fury. Still later in life it must be loaded with chains, or shut up in an iron cage, where its principal occupation is to spend its rage upon the bars.

This true portrait is not very engaging, yet the Hindoos have deified this animal, to which they assign a high place among their thirty millions of deities. We will cite what M. Devaucel has written on this subject:

"Whatever zeal I might have shown in my researches and pursuits in regard to this animal, they had all thus far proved ineffectual, on account of the anxious care which the Bengalese had taken to prevent my killing a sufficiently respectable specimen. These Hindoos always frightened away the monkey as soon as they saw my gun, and during more than a month that I sojourned at Chandernagor, although seven or eight Hoonumans came even to the houses, to seize the offerings of the sons of Brahma, my garden was found surrounded by divert the attention of the god when he should several Brahmins, who played the tam-tam to come to eat my fruit. His mythologic history is the best thing I know of the kind, but it would be too long to detail here. I will merely say that the Hoonuman is a hero celebrated for his strength, wit, and agility, in the voluminous collection of Hindoo mysteries.

"They offer him the mango, one of the most esteemed fruits, which they say he stole from the gardens of a famous giant in Ceylon. It was in punishment of this theft that he was condemned to the flames, and in extinguishing those flames he burned his face and hands, which remain black to the present time.

"I entered Goutipara, a sacred town of the Brahmins, and saw the trees covered with long tailed hoonumans, who took to flight with dreadful cries. The Hindoos, seeing my gun, had guessed, as well as the monkeys, the cause of my visit, and a dozen of the former came to me to warn me of my danger in shooting the animals, for they were nothing less, they most positively assured me, than metamorphosed princes. As I was leaving the place I met one of these metamorphosed princesses, and she appeared so have a nearer view. I dispatched a ball, and charming that I could not resist the desire to was soon witness to a touching scene. The

CHACMA AND MARMOZET.

poor beast carried a young one upon her back, and feeling herself mortally wounded, she summoned all her energies, seized the little one in her arms, threw it into the branches, and fell dead at my feet. So touching an act of maternal love made more impression on me than all the discourses of the Brahmins; and the pleasure of having secured a beautiful specimen did not in this case compensate for my regret at having killed an animal that clung to life

with such maternal solicitude."

Passing to the genus bearing the significant name of Cynocephales, we find the Chacma or the Ape-baboon of Swainson, the Chac-kamma of the Hottentots. On all fours it is not less than two feet in height, or about the size of a large mastiff. His pelt is of a greenish or yellowish black, the neck of the male wearing a long mane. The face is of a violet black, paler around the eyes, and the upper eyelid is white. The tail, eighteen inches in length, is terminated by a stout tuft of hair.

All the Cynocephales are of a brutal and wicked disposition, but the Chacma has an unequaled ferocity, and a strength against which no man could successfully contend. An example of this happened at the menagerie at Paris a few years since.

One Richard, a powerful man, some five feet six inches in height, was then keeper of the monkeys, and his kitchen was apposite an apartment containing the cage of a Chacma. During his absence one day the monkey succeeded in opening the door of his cage, entered the kitchen, leaped upon a shelf containing some carrots for the other monkeys, and set about wasting in good earnest the dinner of his

companions in captivity. Richard arrived at this moment, and commenced trying to flatter the animal and coax him back into his cage, but the animal contented himself by making a few grimaces at him, and continued his work of devastation. The keeper raised his voice and made use of some threats, which brought new grimaces and grindings of the teeth. He then, for the first time, conceived the unfortunate idea of resorting to a stick, and this movement became the signal for a dreadful struggle. The monkey fell upon him with two such heavy blows in the stomach that the strong man staggered. The furious animal disarmed him, threw him down, and made three deep wounds in his thigh with his strong teeth. These penetrated quite to the bone, and were so severe that serious doubts were for some time entertained as to the recovery of the unfortunate man.

The animal would not reënter the cage until induced by jealousy. Richard had a daughter who sometimes fed the monkey, and had thus gained an influence over him. She was placed behind the cage opposite the open door, and one of the garden boys pretended to caress her. On seeing this the creature fiercely bounded into the cage, thinking to reach them through the bars, when the door was closed upon him and securely fastened.

Kolbe pretends that these animals are so inexpressibly indecent that those persons who hold them in captivity are guilty of shameless effrontery. The same traveler also gives an account of the habits of these animals in the savage state. The Chacmas are passionately fond of grapes and of garden fruits in general. Their strong teeth and claws render them very formidable to the dogs, by whom they are conquered with great difficulty, unless they are previously gorged with fruit. The following is their plan for robbing an orchard, a garden, or a vineyard. They ordinarily make these expeditions in troops,

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a part entering the inclosure, a part being stationed on the wall as sentry, and the rest placed outside at a convenient distance from each other, forming a line that extends from their place of pillage to their rendezvous. All being thus arranged, the animals commence the pillage by tossing the melons, apples, pears, etc., to those upon the wall, and they, in turn, throw them to those outside, and so they are passed along the line, which ordinarily reaches some mountain. They are so expert, and have so keen an eye, that they rarely let the fruits fall in tossing them from one to the other, and the whole is done in profound silence and with much promptness. When the sentinels perceive any one they utter a cry, and at this signal the whole troop flee with astonishing celerity.

The Chacmas are sociable and live in troops, but when they are fixed in a rocky mountain that suits them, they will not tolerate the establishment of any other troop in their neighborhood. They defend their own territory against the approach of all other mammifers, and man in particular. If they perceive one of the latter the alarm is immediately sounded, they call their comrades together with great cries, and mutually encouraging each other, they commence the attack. They first throw at the enemy stones, sticks, and anything upon which they can lay their hands, VOL. XI.-23

all the while approaching and trying to surround them and cut off their retreat. A few discharges of fire-arms frighten them, but their intrepid courage prevents their fleeing until they have seen several of their number stretched upon the ground. If their unfortunate antagonist is without a gun, or his powder fails him, he is lost; the Chacmas press upon him, they seize him, kill him, and tear him to pieces.

An imprudent Englishman, drawn into the pursuit of these ferocious animals, on Table Mountain, near the Cape, suddenly saw himself surrounded by them, and at last was pushed to the very point of a rock overhanging a precipice. In vain he fired a few shots at these animals; they rushed upon him with fearful cries, and the unhappy hunter chose to cast himself down the abyss, rather than be torn in pieces by them. He was killed by the fall.

The Chacmas themselves prefer this fate to captivity. I have received from the lips of M. Delalande a fact which proves it. Well armed, and assisted by Hottentot hunters attached to his service, he one day undertook to surround a little troop of these animals upon the verge of a precipice where their retreat was impossible. They did not hesitate to throw themselves down three hundred feet, rather than be taken.

The scared little monkey who appears in our cut to be receiving condign punish

stiti of the French naturalists. The Marmozet, one of the most noted of these, is a much smaller creature than any of the monkeys previously mentioned, being not more than six inches in length, or about as large as a squirrel. Its tail is ring-streaked black and gray, and its body is watered or waved with a rich yellowish gray. The face and palms of the hands are fleshcolored; it has quite a prominence between the eyes, and a white spot on the forehead; the ear is surrounded with stiff long hairs. The Marmozet is a native of Guiana and Brazil, and is much sought everywhere, not on account of its gentle

ment at the hands of the Chacma is the Cercocebus radiatus, sometimes called the Macacus, known also as the Chinese Bonnet Monkey, probably so called on account of the rays of hair which diverge in all directions from the face. The muzzle is smaller and straighter than that of most of the other macaci, the face and ears are of a livid flesh color, and the hands violet. The Bonnet Monkey inhabits India, and is found principally on the coast of Malabar, where it enjoys the same privileges as the Hoonuman in Bengal. The natives are forbidden to kill it, under some pretext or other, and under severe penalties. If a European happens to commit the dread-ness, but because it is pretty and makes ful crime, he is not subjected to the same penalties as the natives, because it would be difficult to inflict them, but the Brahmins are perfectly convinced that some of the ten or a dozen monkey gods will kill off the offender during the year, to be avenged for their earthly representative. The result is, that the Bonnet Monkey has plenty of elbow room in this part of India, and as the traveler Pyrard says, "These monkeys are so inquisitive, mischievous, and numerous, that they cause much damage, and the inhabitants of both town and country are obliged to put trellises upon the windows to keep them out of their houses."

We have not, to my knowledge, any recent reports on this species, and the accounts of ancient travelers are very confused. Still it appears that the Bonnet Monkey has a capricious character, and wicked disposition, at least when it attains a certain age, and that it lives habitually on the pillage of orchards and sugar-cane plantations. It is also fond of the sap of the palm, which in India is used for the preparation of a fermented liquor called Zari. The monkey lies in ambuscade and watches the Hindoo when he taps the tree, and puts in a bamboo spout to conduct the sap to a vessel below. As soon as the Hindoo has gone, this mischievous creature darts from its hiding place, climbs the tree, and drinks the sap as fast as it flows out. It sometimes happens that the liquor intoxicates the animals, and then they are easily taken. But these observations are all of ancient date, and need to be confirmed anew.

The Striated Monkey (Jacchus vulgaris) is probably so called from the color of its hairy coat, and belongs to the order Ou

but little trouble. Its character is not amiable, and is very far from warranting the friendship which the creature inspires. It appears good because it is feeble, intelligent because mistrustful, and gentle because fearful. In its native woods it has a certain vivacity which is lost during captivity. It preys upon large insects, and little birds, which it loves to catch while leaping from branch to branch. When its hunting proves inadequate to the supply of its wants, it adds fruits and grains to its diet, but its habits are carnivorous. It sometimes descends from the trees, and hunts snails and small lizards. It even ventures to the water to seize unawares the little fish.

When the male has been separated from the female in seeking her prey, he utters a sharp, prolonged whistle to call her, and by this means he betrays himself to the hunter. For if he perceives any disturbance he crouches in some fork of the large branches, and remains so perfectly quiet that it is impossible to get a glimpse of him.

The male and female are never separated, though they appear to have very little affection for each other. The female shows much ferocity, and that, too, in circumstances which in other animals develop increased tenderness. She gives birth to three or four little ones at once, and usually makes her debut into maternal duties by biting off the heads of one or two of them. The education of the rest of her family is pursued with a similar degree of tenderness. The little ones climb upon her back, and when she consents to carry them it is but for a short time, and the moment that they embarrass or fatigue her, she rubs herself against the trunk or a branch of a tree, at the risk of crushing

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