166 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



behaved in exactly the same way as the langur and her baby, and 

 the father took a lively interest in his child, but did not share in 

 protecting it in any way. Later on, when the young ape began to 

 take food itself, the parents did not scramble with it for dainties, 

 in the usual fashion of monkeys living together, but they showed no 

 signs of sharing food. Marmosets breed quite often in captivity, 

 the birth usually taking place in the sleeping-box. They often 

 show a perverted instinct which is not infrequent amongst 

 mammals, but very rare in the case of monkeys. In the first day 

 or two the mother may kill and eat her young. In the carni- 

 vores this perhaps is not so surprising. When the cubs are feeble, 

 or die from natural causes, it would not be unnatural for a carnivorous 

 mother to eat them, and it happens more often with young and 

 inexperienced mothers who neglect their young. But it also occurs 

 in the case of many animals that are not carnivorous, where the 

 conditions are favourable and the young apparently healthy. A 

 good many animals eat the after-birth, which is said to contain a 

 substance that excites the secretion of milk, and the eating of the 

 young may be suggested by the habit. 



Lemurs often breed in captivity and are extremely good mothers. 

 As in man and true monkeys, there is usually only one at a birth. 

 It clings firmly to the mother, lying horizontally across the lower 

 part of her abdomen, holding on by its hands and feet and with its 

 long tail twisted round the back of the mother. The mother, 

 however, helps to support the baby by her own tail, which she 

 usually curls up between her legs over the body of the infant and 

 then twists round her own body. Later on, when the young is more 

 active, it is often carried on the back of the mother. For the first 

 day or two the mother sits upright with the baby lying across her 

 abdomen, and bends over it from time to time with a low crooning 

 noise. Male lemurs take no interest in their young and have no 

 share in protecting them. The plate (X) shows a black-headed 

 lemur with its baby, born in the London Zoological Gardens, 

 drawn a few days after birth. The text-figure (Fig. 30) shows the 

 young of another lemur, when much older, being carried on the 

 mother's back. 



In all the carnivores the young are born in a helpless con- 

 dition, usually blind, although new-born lions can see, and remain 

 with the mother, sometimes with both parents, for a period ranging 

 from a few weeks in some of the smaller creatures to even more 

 than a year. The large predaceous creatures cover great distances in 



