XOTES ON AFRICAN MONKEYS 



673 



have to Imri-y. One night we were 

 awakened by a great commotion among 

 tlie baboons. In the morning we found 

 that a leopard had been there, and after 

 that the baboon family did not come 

 to its tree. 



The natives are very iniuli afraid of 

 these baboons, which not only come 

 down into the gardens and eat the 

 corn and dig up the sweet potatoes, bnt 

 also sometimes carry away little chil- 

 dren. The old male is frightful to be- 

 hold, a very vicious aninml with long- 

 fangs. When we Avere hunting in a 

 forest of Uganda, the natives came to 

 us begging that we kill some baboons 

 which had taken a child and which they 

 could not drive out of their gardens. 

 One of these baboons, later shot by 

 Mr. Akelej', was the largest we had 

 ever seen. 



About the camp fire at night wc 

 never tired of talking over what we 

 knew of the ways of these monkeys and 

 of the other creatures in the African 

 wilderness and of relating tales of our 

 daily adventures. One evening the talk 

 chanced to turn upon our zoological 

 gardens at home in America, and we al 1 

 fully and emphatically agreed that we 

 did not believe in taking back these free 

 creatures, monkeys, lions, elephants, or 

 any others, to unnatural conditions and 

 a life of captivity and homesickness. 

 Some of the party cited the monkeys of 

 our "zoos" as especially pitiable under 

 the conditions of their imprisonment, 

 so much so that there had been created 

 in the minds of many people a feeling 

 of repugnance for the whole monkey 

 race. At this point I decided that I 

 would capture and introduce to the 

 company a icild, free monkey for com- 

 parison. But I had no idea at the time 

 that the captive would prove of interest 

 to me for so long a period of years. 



So J. T. was brought into camp just 

 to let the friends who were with us. 

 Mr. J. T. McCutcheon and Mr. Fred 

 Stephenson, see the diffefcnce between 

 a wild monkey and the zoological park 



specimen. Our porters made a basket- 

 like trap and baited it with corn, and 

 till' monkey was only frightened when 

 the basket fell snugly over her. We 

 judged she was six or eight months 

 old; and she surely was just as saucy 

 as she could be. She was not afraid of 



An afternoon cmU ou :i little Boer girl of the 

 Uasin Gishu Plateau (note the tender pride of 

 guardianship in Allie's face). Monkeys are 

 suspicious of strangers, even of monliey stran- 

 gers outside their own clan, but they possess an 

 underlying sociability easily developed into 

 friendship, Tliey have long memories for both 

 people and their acts, and have been known to 

 repay a grudge as well as a kindness after a 

 considerable lapse of time. Among one another 

 the members of any band of monkeys are likely 

 to be aflfectionate. and monkeys probably make 

 better mothers than many of the natives we saw 

 in Africa. .J. T. undoubtedly was lonesome for, 

 because of the expedition's rapid change of 

 base, she could rarely have other monkeys to play 

 with for more than a week or two at a time 



