230 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



receive their captor with open arms, some hug their 

 bottles with approbative grunts, while others lie on the 

 ground, contemplating the sky in ecstatic silence. 



In Mexico, monkeys are generally caught in box-traps. 

 The Mexican farmer rarely kills a capuchin-monkey: 

 man can afford to bear with his poor relatives where 

 nature has been so kind to all, and in some districts of 

 Oaxaca the monitos are as petulant as the sacred apes of 

 Benares. Still, it is possible that this Hindoo-like for- 

 bearance of our next neighbors has something to do 

 with their indolence, for I suspect that north of the Rio 

 Grande the propensities of the long-fingered four-handers 

 would " severely strain our tolerance," as Mr. Evarts 

 said of the peculiar ethics of the Salt Lake Saints. Nor 

 does the monkey-ridden ranchero object to their extermi- 

 nation by proxy : wherever maize is cultivated in the 

 neighborhood of the river-forests the trapper is generally 

 welcome. The box-trap method can be successfully em- 

 ployed only where the haunts of the game are well 

 known, for the capuchins won't go out of their way 

 without very special inducements, and in a field where 

 monkeys have been caught before, their relatives become 

 as circumspect as pickpockets in a metropolitan opera- 

 house. 



I once watched such a field for a whole afternoon 

 before we caught one of the pilferers, probably an out- 

 sider who had strolled in on the chance of getting a free 

 lunch. The trapper had taken us to the loft of a corn- 





