2 g ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



chained beast of the Apocalypse had broken loose, and 

 if an unchained monasso gets a five-minutes' chance at 

 a kitchen or a parlor he can be relied upon to commit 

 all the havoc a creature of his strength could possibly 

 execute in five times sixty seconds : an instinct border- 

 ing on inspiration seems to tell him at the first glance 

 where and how to perpetrate the greatest amount of 

 actual damage in the shortest possible time. In a harbor- 

 hotel of Cartagena I saw a mono whose terpsichorean 

 talents had made him a more than local celebrity. He 

 could dance the Moorish zameca, besides the bolero and 

 fandango, and was sometimes released at the request of 

 his admirers, who pitied his constant collisions with the 

 lock of his drag-chain ; but on such occasions the land- 

 lady used to charge a real extra, for even her presence 

 did not prevent the mono from indulging his ruling 

 passion. Under pretext of returning the caresses of his 

 visitors, he managed to abstract their buttons, upset a 

 flower-pot or two, or interrupted his performances to 

 make a grab at a litter of poodle puppies on the veranda. 

 His scar-covered skull proved that the lot of the trans- 

 gressor is hard ; but the depilated condition of his neck 

 was owing to a peculiar trick of his, as the posadera ex- 

 plained it. He would hug a post near his couch under 

 the veranda, and, stretching his head back and his 

 tongue out, would twist his neck to and fro, as if in the 

 agonies of strangulation. During a temporary absence 

 of their mother he once succeeded in deceiving the chil- 



