I4 8 ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



ances, as with fat house-baboons of a roving disposition. 

 Four-handed vagrants are promptly stopped and cross- 

 examined : no mercy for the homeless stranger suspected 

 of speculating upon a share of their scanty sportules, 

 while the household pet with his brass collar and sleek 

 pouch is merely scrutinized with silent envy. The half- 

 grown bhunder-monkeys are so pretty that they are 

 often domesticated, but their relatives dislike to part 

 with them, from motives that have nothing to do with 

 " philoprogenitiveness." The holy children are their 

 mediators, their apple- and bread-winners. The en- 

 treaties of the little beggars are not easy to resist : they 

 will climb you after the manner of pet squirrels, em- 

 brace you with one arm and beg with the other, ac- 

 companying their gestures with a deprecatory mumble 

 that becomes strangely expressive, as if they were plead- 

 ing extenuating circumstances, if you offer to strike 

 them. Even the idol-hating Mussulman is thus often 

 beguiled into a liberality which his conscience may be 

 far from approving. If the little spongers have struck 

 a bonanza, they swallow in situ all they can find room 

 for, well knowing that upon their return the contents 

 of their cheek-pouches will be claimed by their rela- 

 tives, for even a mother-monkey has no hesitation in 

 plundering her own child in that way. To avoid co- 

 ercive measures, the poor kids surrender their savings 

 voluntarily and with great despatch at the approach of 

 the ruthless parent. Like our artist-mendicants who 



