812 OUT OF DOORS. 



backed like a furred lizard, but with arched back, 

 recurved neck, and head drawn snake-like to the 

 shoulders, j ust as the little creature appears when sud- 

 denly alarmed and ready to jump in any direction at a 

 moment's notice. 



Perhaps the apes are the most surprising examples 

 of successful preparation. Everyone knows how utterly 

 unsatisfactory is a stuffed monkey, with its face 

 shrivelled out of all shape and expression, and looking 

 as if punched out of an old shoe, its withered fingers 

 like knotted sticks covered with scorched parchment, 

 and the total want of * set ' in its fur — defects which 

 increase with time, and quite ruin the real value and 

 true object of the specimen. 



But here is a young chimpanzee, sitting with a 

 negligently easy air on a cocoa-nut, and contemplating 

 the landscape with the air of profound wisdom and 

 grotesque melancholy so often seen in the few tail-less 

 apes that have been brought to this country in a living 

 state. The mouth and lips possess all the soft round- 

 ness of life ; the ears, nose, and forehead have regained 

 their wonted contour ; and even the bare palms are so 

 perfect that the little wrinkles caused by their half- 

 closed state, as they lie negligently on the lap, are 

 reproduced with marvellous fidelity. 



Gret the creature between yourself and the window, 

 and you will see that it is perfectly hollow, so hollow, 

 indeed, that the hands and face are translucent as 

 letter-paper— -even to the very finger-nails. There is 



