THE MONKEY FAMILY. 



"Ex Fumo Dare Lucem" 



HAVING formerly placed the ant-bear and the sloth in a true position 

 with regard to their habits, which had never been properly described, 

 I could wish to say a word or two on those of monkeys, ere the 

 cold hand of death " press heavy on my eyelids ; " for having now 

 been an inhabitant of this planet some seventy-four years, every 

 rising sun informs me that my mortal course is drawing to its close ; 

 and methinks that beautiful verse of the poet comes aptly home to 

 me, 



" Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum." 



The study of zoology is not so simple now as it formerly used to 

 be. Our learned instructors in this pleasing art have fabricated 

 systems so abstruse, so complicated, and so mystified withal, that I 

 find little pleasure, and still less profit, in perusing the books which 

 contain them. Indeed, I candidly avow that I am not learned 

 enough to comprehend the exact meaning of many newly-coined 

 words, whilst the divisions and subdivisions of species in the birds 

 perplex me beyond measure, and ever and anon make me as angry 

 as the "fretful porcupine." So that, when I have managed to 

 struggle through a few chapters of modern improvements in the 

 arrangement and nomenclature of animated nature, I feel none the 

 better for the labour. Not long ago, in glancing over a history of 

 monkeys, which had been sent by a friend for my perusal, I had to 

 pronounce the following words, and comprehend their meaning : 

 " Cereopithecus, Gallitrix, Sciureus, Oristile, Arachnoides, Subpen- 

 tadactylus, Hypoxanthus, Platyrrhini, Pygerythrceus," &c. Possibly 

 I may be wrong in noticing these abstruse words, as, for aught I 



