THE VERVET MONKEY OR BLUE APE 



tion of the pus from the wounds, no doubt, had 

 induced a lowered condition of health, which brought 

 about this mental derangement. 



In the Port Elizabeth Museum I kept a number of 

 live spiders which were on exhibition in glass globes, 

 open at the top. I also had a young Vervet Monkey 

 in a cage adjacent. The latter escaped one day, and 

 before the attendant was aware of the fact it had 

 eaten every one of the spiders. When he appeared 

 it walked up to him and allowed itself to be taken up 

 and put back into its cage, evidently thinking it had 

 rendered us a service in disposing of a score of 

 poisonous insects. 



When sleeping, Vervet Monkeys cluster together 

 for warmth in the forks of the branches of great 

 forest trees. Once I startled a number of them 

 from a large cavity at the top of the trunk of a forest 

 tree. On another occasion a score or more were 

 perched on the roof of the nest of a Hammerkop 

 bird [Scopus umbretta), and from the interior which 

 had been enlarged. The nests of these birds are 

 sometimes so large that a cart would hardly accom- 

 modate one. They are often in trees, and are com- 

 posed of twigs, sticks, reeds, rushes, &c., with a 

 chamber plastered with mud. 



Sometimes these monkeys roost on ledges of rock 

 in sheltered situations. I have never yet met two 

 large troops of monkeys in the same locality. They 

 seem to have their districts as carefully marked out 

 as is the case with us. Should a troop encroach upon 



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