258 THE RING OF NATURE 



will no longer climb his pole for a mere piece of 

 sugar. He sits up or stands up or sprawls with 

 upturned eyes till either you are overcome by his 

 wiles or drop the morsel by accident. Only after 

 he has long gazed at an orange and is convinced 

 that he can get it no other way will he climb. 

 If he catches the orange up there he champs it, 

 and spits out only the pips on regaining terra 

 firma. But if he first takes the orange on the 

 floor it is marvellous to see how neatly he slits the 

 peel with his claws, picks out the pips, and eats 

 only the sweet pulp. 



The monkey house is not nearly so terrible a 

 place as it was. The excitement of seeing some 

 one else's bonnet snatched off and made the 

 material of a simian holiday is now denied to us 

 by the strait-laced authorities. The wire-netting 

 is too close to permit a monkey to catch hold of 

 the most careless person's hair. It was in the old 

 days an illuminating lesson in animal intelligence 

 (or the lack of it) to see some valiant young man 

 rescue his adored whose hair had been caught, 

 by pulling hard at her arm. Surely she could take 

 that method of extrication herself. Those little 

 monkey hands are not lion's claws, and can be 

 caught and unlocked as easily as baby's fingers. 

 Their owners know it, and rarely suffer you to 

 touch them. 



Out in the gardens not many paces away from 

 the monkey house is the only baby simian born 

 in the Zoo. The old Japanese apes and their 



