MY MONKEYS. 529 



The anecdotes about the propensity of monkeys to imitate man are 

 much exaggerated. They have a physical stx'ucture like his, and mental 

 qualities in some respects not wholly dissimilar from his, and naturally 

 make gestures like those of men ; and that is the most of truth there 

 is in those stories. 



Monkeys have a language, as among themselves, that is easily 

 understood by individuals of the same species. Individuals of different 

 species, if not too far remote, can after a time learn to iinderstand 

 each other ; but if the species are very different, like those of the 

 Old and the New World, the effort is tantamount to that of learning a 

 new language, and frequently requires several years. As the thoughts 

 of monkeys are excessively limited in extent and their wants relate 

 solely to food and the struggle for existence, their language is but little 

 varied, and is composed chiefly of vowels pronounced with different 

 intonations and accompanied by different expressions of the figure, 

 the most common of which are laughing and grinning, and which each 

 species performs in its own peculiar fashion. The expressions of anger 

 are also characteristic, and vary with the species. 



My rhesus, together with a large mandrill and a Cynopitheeus niger 

 of unusual size, ate at my table, and received all the dishes that I had. 

 The rhesus preferred roast fowl and roast mutton to all other meats, 

 and also liked eggs, raw or cooked. His weakness for eggs once cost 

 me a considex'able sum, whicli I had to pay to a neighbor for one hun- 

 dred and fifty eggs of high-bred fowls which my pet had destroyed. 

 He ate all kinds of seeds, and liked much to vary his food. Among 

 vegetables he preferred asparagus, and had a strong appetite for 

 fruits, to gratify which he made my own and my neighbors' orchards 

 suffer. 



His ordinary drink was milk and half a glass of Bordeaux, which 

 he took in his hand as a man would have done, without spilling a drop. 

 I sometimes gave him tea, chocolate, cocoa, coffee, beer, and white 

 Tokay wine. He frequently abused the last drink, and learned to go 

 into a room where a bottle of it was kept. He would then get drunk 

 — dead-drunk — like any man, and my servant would find him and call 

 to me to help put him into the cage. But, even in this condition, he 

 never failed to have a degree of respect for me, though he would resist 

 being moved, as the street-toper resists the policeman. Put in the 

 cage, he would sleep off his draught stupidly, and then be sick for 

 two or three days, obstinately refusing to eat anything, but never to 

 drink. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Bevue 

 Scientifiqice. 



VOL. XXV. — 34 



