NOTES ON AFJ:ICAN MONk'/'jyS 



681 



monkey;? o£ this species on llic 'I'aiia 

 Eiver must have bathing phieos in the 

 river despite their fear of ci-ocodilos. 

 In camp tlie bhick boy wouM luiiii;- her 

 tub of water into the tent every day. 

 She liked the water very liot and would 

 always put her hand in to test Ihc tem- 

 perature before she jumped in. 1 f it was 

 too hot she would lly at the boy, and it 

 too cold she would do the same thing. 

 The boy would try to fool her some- 

 times by making it too hot or too cold, 

 but she was not to be trifled with. Slie 

 would play with the soap like a chihl, 

 and would get into tlie water many 

 times, jumping about and ])laying be- 

 tween times. When she had had enough 

 she would go out on top of tlie tent 

 and sit in the sun. 



From the specimens that we see in 

 the zoological parks we might judge 

 that monkeys are not always as cleanly 

 creatures as they are in nature. Mon- 

 keys of this species are very cleanly. 

 They have a little woodsy odor, some- 

 thing like that of a squirrel, but their 

 l)odies are perfectly clean when they are 

 caught wild. J. T. never could endure 

 having her hands dirty, and if she got 

 her fingers even wet while eating she 

 would dry them immediately. The 

 poor little monkeys in the zoological 

 park get tired of trying to keep their 

 hands clean. Their habit of extreme 

 cleanliness, as well as their keen eye- 

 sight, is evidenced by their continually 

 picking at their fur — which people in- 

 terpret as meaning that they always 

 have vermin on them. But J. T. would 

 sit down and pick off from her fur 

 every little speck of dust, atoms so 

 small that they would not be noticeable 

 to my eyes. When playing with other 

 monkeys, she would pick off the dust 

 from their fur, and when she and I be- 

 came friendly it was her delight to try 

 to discover tiny bits of dust on my hair 

 —even my eyelashes and eyebrows 

 would get the same treatment if I al- 

 lowed it. 



The powerful vision of this type of 



monkey was sliowii continually in J. 

 T.'s behavior. Slie was very farsighted. 

 On one occasion wlien slie was witli Mr. 

 StepluMison and Mr. Akeley at the 

 (•ani|t, she altiactcd their attention by 

 constanlly looking oil' toward one point 

 in the I'oi-est. They could see nothing, 

 hilt on taking the field glasses dis- 

 (■o\ci-c(l that I was coming out of the 

 forest with my hiack hoy at just that 

 l)oint more than a miU^ distant. 



Her vision for small objects, as well 

 as her delicate sense of touch, was 

 shown in the care with which she would 

 rip fine si itches from cloth. Sometimes 

 when I was sewing or reading and 

 wanted to get rid of lier I would give 

 her some old garment and she would 

 rip out the stitches without tearing a 

 single bit of it — also if not interrupted 

 she would rip the lace from the window 

 curtains to amuse herself. 



I am afraid she often was lonesome, 

 in spite of the dolls she loved and slept 

 with, the many comforts of her life, 

 and her strong attachment for us. 

 Gregarious life is instinctive in the 

 blood of this species of monkey. But 

 we seldom could have other monkeys 

 for her to play with for more than a 

 week or two at a time, because we never 

 stayed very long at any one camp. At 

 a camp in Uganda we kept a baby red 

 Colohus monkey, but the little thing 

 became so fond of J. T.'s black boy 

 that it would cry and mourn whenever 

 the boy left it. On Mount Kenia we 

 brought into camp a female green 

 monkey, a species in which the fur is 

 tipped with yellowish green, in the 

 manner of "tipped fox." While we 

 had her she gave birth to a baby, but 

 it was dead, and she woidd only turn 

 her head away and not look at anyone, 

 and hid the little dead baby by cover- 

 ing it with leaves and grass in the 

 cage. 



'Tatcir' proved J. T.'s best compan- 

 ion. But he did not enter her life until 

 we were on the boat coming back to 

 America. He was a little yellow mon- 



