THE MONKE Y FA MIL Y. 139 



mals. I shall at once divide it into four distinct departments, 

 without any reference to subdivisions ; and this plan will be quite 

 sufficient for the instruction of our young naturalists. 



I would wish to impress upon their minds that, notwithstanding 

 what ancient and modern philosophers have written to the contrary, 

 monkeys are inhabitants of trees alone, when left in their own 

 freedom ; that, like the sloth, they are produced, and live and die 

 in the trees ; and that they rarely or never resort to the ground, 

 except through accident or misfortune. 



I would also entreat young naturalists to consider well, and always 

 bear in mind the formation of the extremities of the four limbs of a 

 monkey. This animal, properly so speaking, is neither a quadruped 

 nor what moderns now style a quadrumanus that is, a creature with 

 four hands. The two limbs of its fore parts may safely be termed 

 hands to all intents and purposes. Whilst the two limbs of its hind 

 quarters are, in reality, neither hands nor feet, but, " centaur-like," 

 partake of the nature of both, their fore part, being well-defined 

 fingers, and the hind part a perfectly-formed heel. Hence, we are 

 not surprised at the self-possession which these agile animals exhibit, 

 when left to their own movements in their native woods. 



In my arrangement, then, of the monkey family, I place the ape at 

 its head ; secondly, the baboon ; thirdly, the monkey with an ordinary 

 tail ; and, fourthly, the monkey with a prehensile tail. 



The ape is entirely without a tail, and in this he resembles man. 

 He is an inhabitant of the Old World only. 



The baboon has a short tail, somewhat in appearance like the tails 

 of our own pointer dogs, truncated and deformed by the useless and 

 wanton caprice of civilised man. It is an inhabitant of the Old 

 World only. 



The monkey with an ordinary tail, long and bushy in some species, 

 and only with a moderate supply of hair in others, is found in both 

 continents, and in several of their adjacent islands. 



The monkey with a prehensile tail, when in its wild state, is 

 never found except in America; so that it is entirely confined to 

 the New World, and, of course, was never heard of in the other 

 three quarters of the globe until the discovery of time country by 

 the Europeans. 



