MAMMALS. 707 



tactics. Instead of devouring the fuddle-cakes on the spot, they learned 

 to gather them up, and defer the feast till they reached a retreat where 

 they could hope to be left alone in their glory. But the trappers, too, 

 have since changed their plan. They manufacture a sort of narrow- 

 necked jars, and, after filling them with a melange of sirup and alcohol, 

 they tie them firmly to the root of a tree, and withdraw out of sight. The 

 monkeys come down and sip the nectar, a little at a time, till many a 

 mickle has muddled their perceptions, to the degree which the founder of 

 Buddhism would have called the first stage of Nirvana, — indifference to 

 earthly concernments in general. The trapper then approaches, and col- 

 lects his guests, whose exalted feelings often manifest themselves in a 

 peculiar way. Some receive their captor with open arms ; some hug their 

 bottles with approbative grunts ; while others lie on the ground, contem- 

 plating the sky in ecstatic silence. One of the macaques — the magot, or 

 Barbary ape — deserves mention on account of its extension west over 

 northern Africa and across the Strait to the Rock of Gibraltar. It is the 

 only species of the whole monkey tribe living wild in all Europe, and this 

 small colony contains the only representatives in that geographical division. 



The doctrine of metempsychosis is a constituent of many an oriental 

 religion, and if one believe that after death he is to be transformed into 

 a monkey, he could hope for nothing better than the East Indians' faith, 

 that their ancestors now live^ in the troops of hoonumauns which throng 

 the region of the Ganges, and that they, too, are to be members of the 

 family. In personal appearance these apes are not very handsome, but in 

 dexterity they possibly exceed any of the other apes and monkeys. Listen 

 to the way one writer describes them : " Without wings agility could hardly 

 go farther ; from the standpoint of a practical anatomist it is almost 

 inconceivable how muscles and sinews, apparently so very similar to our 

 own, can execute such movements. Without the least visible effort, the 

 marvellous half-bird darts through the air in a wide zig-zag, merely touch- 

 ing a branch here and there ; upward suddenly, with a series of mighty 

 swings, regardless and apparently forgetful of obstacles ; down, with a 

 gradationed swing that looks like a single leap ; up again, with a flying 

 rebound, through a tangle-work of branches, yet at the same time watching 

 his comrades, aiming and parrying a slap, or dodging a shower of missiles ; 

 then, witli a sudden grab, a quick contraction of the hind legs, and the 

 acrobat sits motionless on a projecting branch, watching a movement in 

 the grass that has not escaped his eye during his headlong evolutions." 



Of the man-like apes, the culmination of simian development, volumes 

 might be written, so fraught with interest are these, our nearest brute 

 relations. The gibbons and the orang-utan are oriental forms ; the chim- 



