142 THE MONKE Y FAMIL Y 



DIALOGUE. 



" I thought that you inhabitants of the trees, Mr Howler," said the 

 ant-bear, " never troubled the ground ? " "I thought so too," 

 replied the preacher monkey, " until very lately. But I fancy that 

 I must have got drunk one night at a party of our preachers. All 

 I remember was, that I came whack to the ground ; and that soon 

 after daylight, I found myself on a man's shoulders, and he was 

 carrying me off. When I had recovered my senses sufficiently to 

 know what was going on, I made my teeth meet in his ugly cheek. 

 So he threw me down and left me to myself. All this was pure 

 accident ; but here, alas ! I am, with my back broken, and for ever 

 incapacitated from returning to the trees, which are my native 

 haunts." " I see clearly," replied the ant-bear, " that you are out 

 of your element. But pray, Mr Howler," continued he, "how 

 many of you howler monkeys assemble together, when you have 

 determined to give the woods the benefit of your preaching? We 

 are gravely told by an author that you assemble for that purpose." 

 " The idea of our howling in concert," rejoined the preacher 

 monkey, " is most absurd. 'Tis the invention of a wag, believed 

 and handed down in writing by some closet-naturalist or other. 

 Gentlemen of this last description seldom possess discrimination 

 enough to distinguish truth from error. They will just as soon 

 (most unintentionally, no doubt) offer husks, left by swine, for sound 

 corn. Had one compiler not referred his readers to a work, written 

 by a man whom he styles ' an eccentric writer,' the public would 

 still be ignorant of my true history. Now, that ' eccentric writer/ 

 disdaining information acquired in the closet, dashed boldly into 

 the heart of our tropical forests, and there convinced himself that 

 one solitary individual of my tribe produces, by his own efforts 

 alone, all those astounding sounds which naturalists have attributed 

 to a whole bevy of monkeys assembled on the trees to howl in 

 concert. But you, Mr Ant-bear, if reports be true, are said to get 

 your daily food from ants' nests, high up in the forest trees ? " " Mr 

 Howler," replied the ant-bear, " if writers on natural history bring 

 you to the ground from the tops of the trees, in order that you may 



