APES AND MONKEYS. 293 



of course slowly or unskilfully, but rather as rodents than as 

 monkeys. Their voice, too, is quite different from that of all 

 the higher monkeys; it is a whistling in high notes which now 

 reminds one of the chirping of a bird, now of the squeaking of 

 rats and mice, but perhaps most of all of the sound made by 

 the guinea-pig. Their behaviour generally is decidedly rodent- 

 like. They exhibit the uneasiness and restlessness, the curi- 

 osity, shyness, and timidity, the inconstancy of squirrels. Their 

 little heads only remain a few seconds in one position, and their 

 dark eyes are directed now towards this object now towards that, 

 but always hastily, and obviously without comprehension, although 

 they seem to look out on the world intelligently enough. Every 

 action they perform shows their slight power of judgment. As if 

 without will, they act on the suggestion of the moment; they forget 

 what they have just been doing as soon as their attention is diverted, 

 and they prove just as fickle in the expression of their content- 

 ment as of their displeasure. At one moment they are good- 

 humoured, apparently quite satisfied with their lot, perhaps grate- 

 ful for caresses from a friendly hand, the next they are snarling at 

 their keeper just as if their lives were in danger, showing their 

 teeth, and trying to bite. As irritable and excitable as all monkeys 

 and rodents, they yet lack the individuality which every higher 

 monkey exhibits, for one acts exactly like another, without origi- 

 nality and always in a somewhat commonplace fashion. They have 

 all the attributes of cowards the complaining voice, the reluctance 

 to adapt themselves to the inevitable, the whining acceptance of all 

 circumstances, the morbidly suspicious habit of finding in every 

 action of another creature some hostility to themselves, the desire 

 to swagger while in reality they carefully keep out of the way of 

 every real or supposed danger, and an incapacity either to make 

 resolutions or to carry them out. Just because there is so little 

 of the true monkey about them they are preferred by women and 

 despised by men. 



On a decidedly higher level stand the Broad-nosed or New- World 

 monkeys, which also inhabit America, though even in these, the full 

 character of the true monkey is not attained. The dentition num- 



