a 
‘ 
85 
He would endeavour to say a few words respecting their humble 
cousins, the monkeys, of which they had five unusually fine specimens 
on the table. Mr. Wonfor was very anxious that the paper should be 
‘a Sussex one if possible, and he was glad to be able to gratify him 
even in the case of the Quadrumana. That little creature, the pig-tailed 
Macaque or Bruh, one of the cleverest, most humorous, and most 
thievish of all the monkeys, was brought from Singapore by one of the 
sailor sons of Mr. Peters, at the Dome. Mr. Peters divining that he 
liked dead animals better than living ones, promised that he should 
have it if anything happened to it. It was sent a little way into the 
country, got playing as little boys would, entangled its chain in a goose- 
berry bush, and was hanged, so that to this extent it was a Sussex 
monkey. As they were preparing its skeleton the nails were wanting. 
It was a native chiefly of Sumatra, and when young was trained to 
climb the cocoa nut palms and gather the fruit, and it was said that it 
selected the ripe nuts only. There were several other species ofmacaques, 
as the bonnet macaque, the black macaque, and the Barbary ape, and 
this seemed to be the general position of all of them in walking. He 
might mention that should any gentleman wish to lay outa few pounds 
on a Barbary ape for the Museum, there was a fine one in the town, and 
also a large orang-outan and several other monkeys, to be had. They 
had the head and skull of the diadem lemur of Madagascar, but there 
was not time to discuss that curious family, the members of which 
approached, in some respects, the quadrupeds. There were six molars 
at each side in both jaws, instead of five, as in ourselves, and in most 
of the old world Quadrumana. He was sorry they had only the 
head, but the commercial element was too strong for them, and the 
skin was made into a lady’s muff. They had three examples of the 
Gibbon. They were all natives of Asia. They were told that the cry 
of the female was quite a musical performance, capable of being set 
to musical notes. The animal was said to achieve the chromatic 
scale admirably, with precision and rapidity. Beginning with E, she 
first ascended to the upper octave and then descended in the same 
way, but always sounding the lower E almost instantaneously with the 
upper note, whatever that note might be. In general they were all 
affectionate and engaging creatures, and it had been said, “If the 
gigantic and powerful gorilla be compared to Hercules, the light and 
active gibbons may find their type in Mercury, the swift aerial messen- 
ger of the Olympian deities.” 
