1 40 THE MONKE Y FAMIL Y. 



This prehensile tail is a most curious thing. It has been denomi- 

 nated, very appropriately, a fifth hand. It is of manifest advantage 

 to the animal, either when sitting in repose on the branch of a tree 

 or when in its journey onwards in the gloomy recesses of the wilder- 

 ness. You may see this monkey catching hold of the branches with 

 its hands, and at the same moment twisting its tail round one of 

 them, as if in want of additional support ; and this prehensile tail is 

 sufficiently strong to hold the animal in its place, even when all its 

 four limbs are detached from the tree ; so that it can swing to and 

 fro, and amuse itself, solely through the instrumentality of its pre- 

 hensile tail which, by the way, would be of no manner of use to it 

 did accident or misfortune force the monkey to take up a temporary 

 abode on the ground. For several inches from the extremity, by 

 nature and by constant use, this tail has assumed somewhat the 

 appearance of the inside of a man's finger, entirely denuded of hair 

 or fur underneath, but not so on the upper part. By way of recapi- 

 tulation, then, let the young naturalist, when he turns his thoughts 

 on the monkey family, always bear in mind that a monkey without a 

 tail is a real ape, found only in the eastern parts of the Old World ; 

 that a monkey with a short tail, like that of a mutilated pointer dog, 

 is a baboon from the same regions ; but that a monkey with a long 

 tail of common appearance, may be an inhabitant either of the Old 

 World or of the New ; and, lastly, that when a monkey presents itself 

 before him with a prehensile tail, he may be as sure, as he is of the 

 rising sun, it is from the never-ending forests of the New World. 



The termination of all the four limbs in every known monkey is 

 pretty nearly the same, varying only in some trifling particulars in 

 certain species. Thus, for example, the thumb is longer in some 

 than others ; and in others, again, the fingers of what are usually 

 styled the hands, from the knuckles to the first joint, are connected, 

 and give the hand a somewhat unsightly appearance. Nevertheless, 

 these variations from the general form are so trivial and unimportant 

 that they are hardly worth notice ; and they affect not materially the 

 ordinary appearance of the limb : so that, were the four hands of a 

 monkey (no matter from what part of our globe) cut off and pre- 

 sented for inspection, the inspecting naturalist would know at the 

 first glance that they had belonged to a monkey, and to a monkey 



