398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 



Tiie moral responsibility of some animals seems less doubtful tban tbat 



of " intermittent lunatics." If it should become the duty of a public attorney 

 of the future to prosecute a homicidal monkey, the following case (quoted in 

 Brehm's " Thierleben ") would furnish an ugly precedent against the counsel for 

 the defense : A few years ago Dr. Schomburg, the Superintendent of the Botanic 

 Garden of Adelaide, Australia, took charge of a select corps of monkeys and 

 kangaroos, a " happy family," he might have called them, if it had not been for 

 the depravity of an old babuina, or female Bhunder baboon. If she had not been 

 the only representative of her species, he would have tried to get rid of her, for 

 her only object in life seemed to be to make herself as disagreeable as possible. 

 Solitary confinement made her wildly obstreperous, but in the family cage she 

 kept the marsupials in a delirium of terror, and in the evening when her younger 

 relatives ventured to enter the sleeping-box she seemed to consider herself di- 

 vinely ordained to remove them by force. But one day she attacked her own 

 keeper, and without any apparent provocation lacerated his wrist in a shocking 

 way. Schomburg at once ordered her to be shot. The next morning the assist- 

 ant keeper approached her cage with a shot-gun, which had often been used to 

 shoot the rats that infested the menagerie-building. The other monkeys seemed 

 to expect another razzia, but the Bhunder knew better. The moment she saw the 

 gun she made a dash into the sleeping-cage, and when the keeper tried to open 

 the door she yelled as if she hoped to get off on a plea of insanity. Meaning to 

 try her, the keeper waited till breakfast-time, but the babuina did not show 

 herself. She kept out of sight a full hour, till the mess-boy brought an extra 

 lunch of sliced pumpkins, when she made a rush for the bucket in hopes of 

 securing a portable piece. In that moment the keeper bolted the door of her 

 sleeping-cage, and went back for his shot-gun. As soon as the babuina caught 

 sight of him she flew toward her place of refuge, and, finding the door locked, 

 made a mad attempt to squeeze herself through the interspaces of the front rail- 

 ing. But the bars proved inflexible, and, after another desperate pull at the 

 sleeping-cage door, the babuina flung herself into a corner, closed her eyes, and 

 was apparently dead with fear before the buckshot struck her. 



Everybody has heard of the Talmud (which means a study), a vener- 



able work of Hebrew lore, traditions, and commentaries, in twelve folio volumes. 

 There have been many editions of it, and many books about it by renowned 

 scholars. According to the " Encyclopedia Britannica," this is the way the Tal- 

 mud puts the legendary trimmings on to the history of Adam : " He was made 

 as a man-woman out of dust collected from every part of the earth, his head 

 reached to heaven, and the splendor of his face surpassed the sun. The very 

 angels feared him, and all creatures hastened to pay him devotion. The Lord, 

 in order to display his power before the angels, caused a deep sleep to fall upon 

 him, took away something from all his members, and, when he awoke, com- 

 manded the parts that had been removed to be dispersed over the globe, that 

 the whole earth might be inhabited by his seed. Thus Adam lost his size but 

 not his completeness, nis first wife was Lilith, mother of the demons. But 



