MONKEY. 



not at all exist in climates which are much colder. 

 Tliis is not very seriously to be regretted ; for, not- 

 withstanding all the liveliness of their tricks, monkeys 

 are ugly and mischievous creatures, and perhaps none 

 are more offensive, except those human beings who, 

 iu common parlance, are described as making certain 

 remarkable approximations to the monkey. On this 

 part of the subject there is something very curious, 

 and which, very probably, would furnish curious in- 

 formation if our limits and our purpose would admit 

 of our working it out. It is this : whenever a human 

 being seeks to entertain an audience, or otherwise to 

 amuse his fellows, not by mental wit, or any other 

 accompaniment which belongs to man as man, but 

 by harlequinade, buffoonery, or any thing else be- 

 longing to the category of what are usually termed 

 monkey tricks, if his visage and person are not natu- 

 rally distorted and deformed, so as to deviate as far 

 from the proper type of man as possible, then he 

 must eke out his deformity by piebald clothing, and 

 padding and paint, and wriggle his limbs into flexures 

 as inhuman as those of a spider-monkey ; nor must it be 

 concealed that since theatrical exhibition fell from its 

 high and intellectual state, and sunk to the torn-foolery 

 of the rabble, an ugly face is a surer passport to fortune 

 than the highest intellect that ever graced a classical 

 stage. It is in some such fashion as this that the 

 study of the monkeys at once schools us in the foole- 

 ries of our own species, and chastises us for the 

 practising of them. 



In the wild woods of the Oriental Islands, of tro- 

 pical Africa, or of America, the monkey is in its place, 

 and it is a beautiful specimen of that perfect adapta- 

 tion which runs through the whole system of nature ; 

 and it would certainly take nothing from the wisdom 

 and, certes, very little from the real mirth of society, 

 if the real monkeys would kennel with their kindred 

 of the woods. De gustibus non disputandum cst, and, if 

 any of the Bimana will prefer monkey to man, we 

 have no right to quarrel with his election. 



In the tropical forests the different genera of mon- 

 keys are exceedingly numerous and highly character- 

 istic. They are rarely if ever found in open countries, 

 as neither their food nor their organisation fits them for 

 rinding their subsistence upon the ground. Accord- 

 ingly, they are found in patches, of which patches 

 there are three principal ones, and the monkeys of 

 each are so distinct from those of the others, that it 

 may with truth be said, that not a single species is a 

 common inhabitant of two. 



The three patches of the globe, or monkey lands 

 to which we have alluded, are the south-east of Asia 

 and the adjacent isles, the west arid south of Africa 

 (though some compilers, Sir William Jardine among 

 the rest, in his Naturalist's Library, plants them on 

 the east of Africa, and fetches Guinea there for their 

 accommodation)*, and the tropical forests of America. 

 In all of these districts the monkeys differ in ap- 

 pearance from those of the others ; though they agree 

 so much in their habits and the essential parts of 

 their organisation, that the generic differences do 

 not follow the geographical ones, unless between 

 the monkeys of the eastern and the western con- 

 tinents. 



But, notwithstanding the interest which this family 



* " It (the Diana monkey! is a native of the eastern coast of 

 Africa, principally in Guinea, is about eighteen inches in length, 

 with the tail exceeding two feet." Nat. Lib., Minn., vol. i., 

 p. iss. 



NAT. HIST. VOL. III. 



of animals has excited ; and iho quantity of descrip- 

 tion which has been published concerning them, their 

 natural history is still in a very confused and imper- 

 fect state. One cause of this is the extreme difficulty 

 of exploring the haunts of many of them ; another is 

 the delicacy of the Oriental ones, which cannot bear 

 even the temperature at sea, or the passage round the 

 Cape, and of course are rarely brought alive to Eu- 

 rope ; and a third is the avidity with which animals 

 and the skins of animals used to be bought up for 

 the purpose of increasing the raree-show attractions 

 of museums, without any inquiry respecting the 

 native locality of the animal, or its habits in that 

 locality, which are not only the most important, but 

 almost the only important parts of the whole matter. 

 At this day there are more species of monkeys in 

 European museums than have been actually disco- 

 vered in a living state in any part of the world; and 

 this circumstance alone throws a great deal of uncer- 

 tainty into the whole natural history of the race. 

 From distinctions which we shall afterwards notice, 

 it is very easy to decide whether any monkey is a 

 native of the eastern continent or of America. The 

 African and the Asiatic species also, as observed 

 in the two countries, generally speaking, differ from 

 each other; but it was for a long time difficult to 

 ascertain whether skins and specimens of dead ani- 

 mals were Asiatic or African, because the two were 

 blended together in the general market at the Cape, 

 and the sellers cared little or nothing for the country 

 of the specimen, so that they obtained their price for 

 it. The researches which have been recently carried 

 on in the natural history of India by British officers 

 on the different stations, now that India is at peace, 

 and especially those carried on in Java by the ex- 

 ample and under the patronage of Sir Stamford 

 Raffles, have thrown much light upon the natural 

 history of that highly interesting portion of the world ; 

 and those labours have gone a considerable way in 

 deciding what species of monkeys of the eastern 

 continent are Asiatic, and what are not. 



We shall not take the strictly systematic arrange- 

 ment of monkeys according to their genera, because 

 some of these are not very distinct. There are some 

 differences in the structure of the teeth, which indi- 

 cate corresponding differences in the food and dis- 

 position of the animal. Some, for instance, have the 

 canines strong and a good deal produced, and the 

 cheek-teeth with tuberculated or insectivorous crowns, 

 while others possess these characters in a much lower 

 degree. There is none of them, however, which can 

 be considered as absolutely of a carnivorous cha- 

 racter ; and there is none which can be regarded as 

 having the mouth exclusively adapted for vegetable 

 feeding, though the greater part subsist chiefly upon 

 vegetables. We shall take our principal division 

 according to the geography noticing first the mon- 

 keys of the eastern continent, and then those of the 

 western, the former being intermediate between 

 the latter and the apes and baboons ; and we shall 

 add such generic names as are usually given by 

 others. 



I. MONKEYS OF THE EASTERN CONTINENT. Most 

 species of these are exceedingly numerous, and they 

 are very agile in their motions. Their tails are often 

 long, but they are not prehensile. 



The Red Monkey (Ccrcopithecus ruber) is one of 

 the species which has been longest known. The 

 characters of the division to which it belongs are : 

 11 



