2 1 2 Cincinnati Society of Natjiral History. 



Brahma will not even kill vermin ; bul besides, various members 

 of the animal creation are venerated as half-divine, and unfortun- 

 ately the list of those hereditary saints includes some of the most 

 mischievous brutes of the Avilderness. At least three species of 

 monkeys are sacred to the degree of being absolutely inviolate : the 

 Rhesus, the Bhunder-baboon, 7x.x\^Yi2iX\wvc\7kX\(ySemnopitheciisentellus). 

 The last named species of demigods are as long-legged as our 

 Brazilian spider-monkeys, and with a single leap can clear a thorn 

 hedge of twelve feet, and climb masonry Avith the facility of a 

 wall spider. 



Whole regiments of these lank marauders will quarter them- 

 selves on a single farm, and appropriate the lion's share of the 

 produce, unless the farmer should forestall their modesty by gath- 

 ering his fruits before their season and let them ripen in a closed 

 drying bin. More violent methods of self-defense would draw 

 down the implacable vengeance of Brahma, who has taken the 

 Hanuman under his special protection. 



The hunchbacked bull decimates the pastures, and is too holy 

 to be kicked even if he should invade a truck farm, or leave his 

 trade-mark on the sidewalk of a decent town. "Oh, my son, 

 oppress not the poor," Van Orlich heard a Hindoo farmer adjure a 

 voracious bull. "Come, my child, I will feed thee with honey 

 if thou wilt follow me." The bull continued to help himself. 

 "Provoke not the weak," resumed the Hindoo; "Brahma is 

 just; come, repent in time." The bull never budged, and the 

 farmer at last summoned two companions. "Oh, my son," they 

 began again, but at the same time two of them seized the bull's 

 horns left and right, and thus trotted him, chanting a passage from 

 the Upanishads, while their assistant enforced the quotation by 

 hammering a board with a sort of mallet. 



A Brahma bull has been known to enter the very house of a 

 green-truck vender and devour a basketful of turnips while the 

 children hid the yam-roots in a rear room. A tiger might have 

 followed his victims even to that last sanctuary, for, unfortunatelv, 

 he too is madco saccat, "Great God protected," and must under no 

 circumstances be discouraged by bodily violence. Crocodiles are 

 so holy that several sects of orthodox Brahmins throw corpses into 

 the Ganges for the sake of the blest sepulture in the bowels of the 

 sacred saurians. Swarms of pigeons haunt the rice fields, and are 

 likewise too holy for direct opposition, and the planter himself 

 seems to be satisfied with a modest percentage of his harvest; for 



