1 94 THE MONKE Y FAMIL Y. 



have the art to do so ; and he adduces his own experience by telling 

 us, that he himself had had his eyes full of saw-dust. 5 But he care- 

 fully refrains from stating that the monkey did actually throw that 

 saw-dust in his eyes ; so that the reader is left in doubt to determine 

 whether the anterior or the posterior members of the agitated monkey 

 caused the saw-dust to reach my reviewer's eyes. A monkey, dis- 

 appointed and in rage, may well be conceived to flounce and jump 

 about, and with its posteriors, just as well as with its anteriors, make 

 the saw-dust fly in clouds from the bottom of its cage. I have not a 

 doubt but that this was the real state of the affair. I have here at 

 last the reviewer fairly within my reach. I now call upon him to 

 demonstrate to me, in propria persona, that monkeys can hurl projec- 

 tiles or throw saw-dust. If monkeys, in the days of his boyhood, 

 could perform such feats, certainly they will be able to perform them 

 now. I feel sure that my reviewer is a gentleman; and on the 

 strength of this, I invite him at once to Walton Hall, whence we will 

 proceed on a visit to the best assorted collections of monkeys in 

 the three kingdoms, and, if necessary, we will go to the Continent. 

 I will provide ' stones,' 'tiles,' 'lead,' 'pewter-pots/ and 'saw-dust;' 

 all which things, in my reviewer's belief, have, from time to time, 

 been hurled at men by monkeys. I will obey his orders implicitly. 

 He may place me as near to the monkey as he chooses. Then, 

 should any one of the tribe, great or small, or young or old, throw 

 saw-dust, or hurl projectiles at me, I will give in; and I will publicly 

 confess, in Prater's Magazine, that the information which my reviewer 

 has collected, from hearsay and from books, is sound and valuable 

 to science ; whilst, on the contrary, that which I have acquired 

 during a long sojourn in the forests of Guiana (the native haunts 

 of monkeys), is rotten, and not worth one single farthing. Can more 

 be required at my hands? So much for my learned reviewer's 

 intellectual monkeys. 



" The reviewer in Fraser's Magazine having drawn my serious 

 attention to certain extracts from Acosta, Vaillant, and the Guide- 

 Book, I must confess that, on perusing them, it appeared to me 

 that orthodox natural history suffered sorely at his hands. His 

 belief in the validity of these improbable accounts would lead me 

 to suspect, that whilst I was ranging through the forest, bare-footed 



