THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



seemed to be very much more shy than the rest of the 

 troop, and it took me almost an hour before I could get a 

 shot at it, bringing it down from the top of an enormous 

 cedar, from where it must have fallen over a hundred feet 

 before it struck the ground. A few minutes afterward 

 I secured a second specimen of white colobus monkey, but 

 this one was somewhat smaller, and had a tiny, thin, white 

 streak of grayish black hair in the middle of its back. 

 This faint spot was about half an inch wide and somewhat 

 over three inches long. 



Very little is known, even by the natives, about the 

 habits of this generally very shy monkey, for it lives only 

 in the dense forest. It hardly ever does any damage to 

 the crops of the natives, who may have their little " sham- 

 bas " in the vicinity. The colobus monkeys live chiefly 

 on buds, fruit, and certain insects, and they often go in 

 troops of from twenty to one hundred at a time. It may, 

 perhaps, be unusual, but I once found on the southwestern 

 slopes of Mt. Kenia a place between two streams which 

 seemed literally alive with these beautiful creatures, there 

 being at least three to four hundred of them within a 

 radius of a few hundred yards. 



A great many attempts have been made to capture, 

 tame, and bring the colobus to Europe and America, but 

 all in vain. It seems as if the animal were too frail to 

 survive the voyage, most of those shipped from East 

 Africa having died before the vessel reached Port Said. 

 I caught a beautiful young specimen in 1909, and had it 

 for several days in camp. It became quite tame and even 

 ate out of my hand. My hopes grew that it would be 

 possible to get the monkey safely home to New York, when 



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