38 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



is a sentiment entirely in accord with popular ideas. It finds a 

 re-echo in hearts that love Nature wisely and well ; but, all the same, 

 it is the echo of a false note, in so far at least as the ape is concerned. 

 Contrast with the poetic declamation against the Quadrumana, Mr. 

 Darwin's recital of the heroic monkey who defended his keeper 

 against the attack of a baboon. " Several years ago," says Mr. 

 Darwin, " a keeper at the Zoological Gardens showed me some deep 

 and scarcely healed wounds on the nape of his own neck, inflicted 

 on him, whilst kneeling on the floor, by a fierce baboon. The little 

 American monkey, who was a warm friend of this keeper, lived in 

 the same large compartment, and was dreadfully afraid of the great 

 baboon. Nevertheless, as soon as he saw his friend in peril, he 

 rushed to the rescue, and by screams and bites so distracted the 

 baboon that the man was able to escape, after, as the surgeon 

 thought, running great risk of his life." Such an account of what 

 the ape-character may exhibit in the way of gratitude and recognition 

 of past kindness, may serve to show that there may be depths of 

 philosophy existent in the Monkey-house at the Zoo' undreamt of in 

 the experience of the humanity that streams through the dwelling- 

 place of the ape tribes. 



The terms " monkey " and " ape " are often applied indiscrimi- 

 nately to indicate any member of the great order of mammals which 

 ranks next to man's group in point of structure and function. The 

 name " Quadrumana," applied by naturalists to this group, is also 

 tolerably well known to depend for its application on the fact that 

 monkeys appear to be. " four-handed " animals. Scientifically em- 

 ployed, the term " ape " is limited to the highest members of the 

 monkey-order, which, it may be noted, includes within its limits 

 animals of very varied ranks, when their organisation, physical and 

 mental, is taken into account. The name " Quadrumana," given 

 to the group by Cuvier, it may be noted, is by no means correctly 

 descriptive of the monkey-race. They are " four-handed," it is true, in 

 the sense that whilst their hands essentially resemble our own in their 

 grasping powers, their feet are also endowed with hand-like functions. 

 But they are not " quadrumanous," if by that term is implied, what 

 is often popularly believed, that a monkey's lower or hind limbs end 

 each in a veritable hand. At the most, the foot of the monkey 

 becomes hand-like in function through the adaptation of the toes to 

 form a "hand." The essential feature of any hand is, of course, 

 the power of throwing the thumb off the plane of the other 

 fingers, and the adaptation of its muscular arrangements to bring 

 it into opposition to the fingers so that objects of very varied 

 sizes may be grasped between them. Regarded in this aspect, 

 the hand of man is undoubtedly the most perfect instrument of 

 its kind we know. The human thumb can "oppose" the other 



