INTRODUCTION. 



1 HAVE little to add to the remarks given in the first volume 

 of this *' Hand-book." I may refer, however, to the interest 

 which attaches to the study of the extinct forms of life, in 

 relation to those which exist at the present day. Although I 

 have endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to present to the 

 student as complete a review of the species of Monkeys 

 known to us at the present time, I am well aware that there is 

 an enormous amount of work to be done before our know- 

 ledge of the Primates can be said to be complete. There is 

 a natural repugnance to collecting specimens of Monkeys on 

 the part of sportsmen. To shoot one feels like killing a sort 

 of relation, and even our best collectors, who thoroughly under- 

 stood the necessity of obtaining specimens in the interests 

 of science, speak with a feeling of pain of the human-like 

 distress which a wounded Monkey exhibits ; and it is, there- 

 fore, difficult to induce travellers to shoot animals which 

 offer so much of a ''counterfeit presentment" to human 

 beings. 



The loose way in which the older naturalists expressed 

 themselves in regard to geographical distribution, has also 

 rendered a correct appreciation of the ranges of some of 

 the Primates exceedingly difficult. Thus ''Brazil" may ir,ean 



