192 THE MONKE Y FAMIL Y. 



militating against their being allowed to run loose in their reclaimed 

 state. What this something is I leave to profound zoologists to 

 determine. We know that the wild boar can be brought to herd 

 with our domestic swine. Formerly, with untiring patience, I suc- 

 ceeded in educating the Marjay tiger-cat (considered by Buffon to 

 be untamable) to hunt with pointer dogs. But never, during the 

 course of a long life, either here in England or elsewhere, have I 

 ever met a monkey unattended in the streets. No, indeed ! such a 

 sight would be a phenomenon as marvellous as that of the flying 

 Dutchman in the stormy regions round the Cape of Good Hope. 



" When I was in Malaga, at the beginning of the present century, 

 a king of Spain was said to have possessed an ape from Barbary of 

 surprising sagacity. It was so docile, so knowing, and so calculating, 

 that it was allowed to play at chess with the monarch ; and so soon 

 as it had discovered check-mate to His Majesty, it took to its heels, 

 and scampered off, in order to avoid a bastinado for its presumption. 

 This ape would have done to run in couples with Acosta's celebrated 

 quata. 



"My reviewer's story of the 'male Egyptian night-walker, 3 is a 

 bungled composition. Having broken his chain, and got at liberty, 

 he ' ascended a building, from the roof of which he plied the tiles 

 about the heads of the keepers with such dexterity, strength, and 

 nimbleness, that he fairly beat them off, after untiling almost all the 

 place. 



" Here we have a monkey, apparently throwing tiles at the heads 

 of the keepers with considerable noise and clatter. The true bearing 

 of this wonderful fracas is easily shown, without much loss of time 

 and ink. Thus, tiles are mostly arranged on the roof without the 

 use of mortar ; and this must certainly have been the case here. 

 Had they been fixed with mortar (or pointed, as it is usually called), 

 I defy any monkey to have dislodged them. Now, if these simple- 

 tons of keepers (who, it seems, had lost all presence of mind at the 

 sudden escape of their supposed revengeful prisoner) merely observed 

 if its face were turned to them, or from them, this would have enabled 

 them to discern whether it were actually throwing the tiles at their 

 heads, or whether the tiles, dislodged by the monkey scampering 

 over them, were merely coming down to the ground by their own 



