472 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE, 



Mr. Darwin writes : 



Bengger observed an American monkey (a Cebus) carefully 

 driving away the flies which plagued her infant and Duvancel 

 saw a Hylobates washing the faces of her young ones in a 

 stream. So intense is the grief of female monkeys for the loss 

 of their young, that it invariably caused the death of certain 

 kinds kept under confinement by Brehm in North Africa. 

 Orphan monkeys were always adopted and carefully guarded 

 by the other monkeys, both mule and female. 1 



Again, Jobson says that whenever his party shot an 

 orang-outang from their boat, the body was carried off 

 by others before the men could reach the shore. 



So, again, James Forbes, F.R.S., in his ' Oriental 

 Memoirs,' narrates the following remarkable instance 

 of the display of solicitude and care for a dead companion 

 exhibited by a monkey : 



One of a shooting-party under a banian tree killed a female 

 monkey, and carried it to his tent, which was soon surrounded 

 by forty or fifty of the tribe, who made a great noise and seemed 

 disposed to attack their aggressor. They retreated when he 

 presented his fowling-piece, the dreadful effect of which they 

 had witnessed and appeared perfectly to understand. The head 

 of the troop, however, stood his ground, chattering furiously 

 the sportsman, who perhaps felt some little degree of compunc- 

 tion for having killed one of the family, did not like to fire at 

 the creature, and nothing short of firing would suffice to drive 

 him off. At length he came to the door of the tent, and, find- 

 ing threats of no avail, began a lamentable moaning, and by the 

 most expressive gesture seemed to beg for the dead body. Lt 

 was given him ; he took it sorrowfully in his arms and bore it 

 away to his expecting companions. They who were witnesses 

 of this extraordinary scene resolved never again to fire at one 

 of the monkey race. 



Of course it is not to be supposed from this instance 

 that all, or even most monkeys display any care for their 

 dead. A writer in * Nature ' (vol. ix. p. 243), for instance, 

 says expressly that such is not the case with Gibbons 

 (Hylobates agilis\ which he has observed to be highly 

 sympathetic to injured companions, but ' take no notice 

 whatever ' of dead ones. 



1 Descent of Man, p. 70. 



