CLIMBING POWERS OP THE MONKEY 515 



to some other district soon restores them to abundance. With 

 an agility far surpassing that with which the sailor ascends 

 the rigging, and climbs even to the giddy top of the highest 

 mast, they leap from bush-rope to bush-rope, and from bough 

 to bough, mocking the tiger-cat and the boa, which are unable 

 to follow them in their rapid evolutions. 



Formed to live on trees, and not upon the ground, they are 

 as excellent climbers as they are bad pedestrians. Both their 

 fore and hind-feet are shaped as hands, generally with four 

 fingers and a thumb, so that they can seize or grasp a bough 

 with all alike. 



Buffon erroneously remarks of the chimpanzee, that he 

 always walks erect, even when carrying a weight ; but this ape, as 

 well as the other anthropomorphous simise, proves by the slow- 

 ness and awkwardness of his movements, when by chance he 

 walks upon even ground, that this position is by no means 

 natural to him, or congenial to his organisation. Man alone, of 

 all creatures, possesses an upright walk ; the ape, on the contrary, 

 always stoops, and not to lose his equilibrium when walking, 

 is obliged to place his hands upon the back of his head, or on 

 his loins. Thus, in his native wilds, he rarely has recourse to 

 this inconvenient mode of progression, and when forced by 

 some chance or other to quit the trees, he leans while walking 

 upon the finger-knuckles of his anterior extremities, a position 

 which in fact very much resembles walking on all -fours. 



It is, indeed, only necessary to compare the long, robust, and 

 muscular arms of the chimpanzee with his weaker and shorter 

 hind-feet, to be at once convinced that he was never intended for 

 walking. But see with what rapidity, with what power and 

 grace, he moves from branch to branch, his hind-legs serving 

 him only as holdfasts, while his chief strength is in his arms. 

 The tree is, without all doubt, for him what the earth is for us, 

 the air for the bird, or the water for the fish. 



We cannot wonder at the ancients having known but few 

 species of simiae, as these animals chiefly belong to the torrid 

 zone, with which the Grreeks and Eomans were so imperfectly 

 acquainted. It is only since a wide extent of the tropical regions 

 has been opened by trade or conquest to European research, 

 that many of the mysteries of monkey-existence have been 

 brought to light from the darkness of the primeval forest, and 



