138 THE MONKE Y FAMIL Y. 



know to the contrary, they may be essentially necessary in these 

 times of scientific novelty, to help the young naturalist in his journey 

 onwards to the temple of fame. Towards the close of the last 

 century, I well remember, when Billy Pitt's tax upon hair-powder 

 changed the very nature of ornamental hairdressing. The barbers 

 were all up in arms ; and tails, both pig and club, as they were then 

 termed, fell in a universal massacre. 



One order alone deemed it important to retain the grotesque 

 absurdities of former days. The lawyers stood true to the powdered 

 wig and gown, and have patronised them up to the present hour, in 

 spite of their uncouth appearance. The general impression was, 

 that gowns of unmeaning shape, and hoary wigs with greasy curls 

 and downward tails, added dignity and consequence both to judge 

 and counsel. I verily believe, that if an unfortunate criminal just 

 now were defended by a sergeant-at-law, without his professional 

 wig and gown, and then condemned to death by my lord judge 

 in plain clothes, the people would exclaim, " That poor devil has not 

 had a fair trial ! " So it is with natural history. Divest a book on 

 birds, for example, of its unintelligible nomenclature, together with 

 its perplexing display of new divisions, and then it will soon be 

 declared deficient in the main points, and be condemned to slumber 

 on the dusty shelf. If, in this little treatise on monkeys, I shall 

 succeed in imparting a love for natural history into the minds of 

 my young readers, and at the same time convince them how much 

 is gained in the field, and how little in the closet, my time and 

 labour will be well repaid. I will introduce no harsh words to 

 confound them, nor recommend to them systems, which at best, 

 are unsatisfactory inventions. All that I have got to say, shall be 

 placed before them in so clear a point of view, that every reader, be 

 his education light or solid, will be able to comprehend my meaning, 

 and nothing more than this can be required. 



Let us now proceed to investigate the form and economy of a 

 race of animals which, although known so early as the time in which 

 Aristotle lived, still even in our own days of supposed universal 

 knowledge, seem to be but imperfectly understood. 



The whole family of those amusing and interesting creatures usually 

 denominated monkeys, stands conspicuous in the catalogue of ani- 



