THE MONKE Y FA MIL Y. 169 



Would that he had continued his representations of them, in the 

 beautiful gardens of the Crystal Palace. But it is said that we are 

 to have no more. Possibly some random blow in the dark, from 

 the hand of modern Vandalism, may have smitten the rising plant, 

 and scathed its opening bud. To me, an inspection of these ante- 

 diluvian inhabitants of earth and sea is always a treat of the first 

 order, and it is more agreeable to my intellectual palate than any 

 other scientific food contained in the vast enclosure of art and 

 science. My last visit to the far-famed temple at Sydenham was 

 wholly spent amongst them. 



But let me return to my monkey family. I trust that my readers 

 are, by this time, pretty well convinced that the wild elephants of the 

 forest have never had any particular reason to fear a bastinado from 

 the clubs of apes, nor young black ladies to be under the appre- 

 hension of abduction by them up to the tops of the trees. 



A third ape which has come under my immediate inspection 

 is a young brown chimpanzee, in the Royal Menagerie of Mrs 

 Wombwell. It was captured on the bank of the river Congo, in 

 Africa. Whilst I was at Scarborough during the autumn of 1855, 

 this ape made its appearance there ; and before I left this celebrated 

 watering-place, I wrote the following notice of it in the Scarborough 

 Gazette: "Africa sends us, from time to time, many of her choice 

 productions, some of which are astonishing in their propensities, 

 others of unequalled beauty, and others again of a structure which 

 may give ample scope to the most speculative mind of man. 

 Amongst these is the chimpanzee, upon which I am about to make 

 a few remarks. Apes hitherto introduced into England have walked 

 on the ground, apparently with comparative ease to themselves, so 

 far as the bearings or irregularities of the ground would permit. 

 But this chimpanzee is a decided exception. He who contemplates 

 it when in motion on the ground, will at once perceive that the 

 knuckle of the fingers alone comes in contact with the floor. This 

 position must obviously give it pain. Let me here remark, that it is 

 not the natural position of the animal, but that captivity has forced 

 it into an attitude so unsuited to it. If we wish to contemplate this 

 gentle ape roving in uncontrolled freedom, we must go in imagina- 

 tion to the far-spreading forests of Africa. There, mounted aloft on 



