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VERTEBRATA 



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GENERAL REMAEKS ON THE MONKEY FAMILY. 



We have thus devoted a large space to the Monkey Family, for although in some respects rcpn! 

 sive, they are still ceaseless objects of interest, as well on account of their own peculiarities as tic 

 curious manners and customs of different nations connected with them. They are also inhabitants 

 of the tropical regions of the earth, and hence are associated with the most gorgeous and won 

 derful displays of animal and vegetable life. Thoughtless, playful, given up to an existence in 

 which even the cares of life seem a perpetual round of gambols; in the midst of undying verdure 

 and bloom; gay as the birds, careless as the winds, often variegated in color as the flowers, thej 

 seem — if we leave out the graver species, the apes and baboons — to be the very personification of 

 mirth, frolic, and fun. Subsisting, at least in part, upon insects and the eggs of birds, or the birth 

 themselves, they in turn furnish a perpetual feast to the prowling leopards, panthers, jaguars, and 

 ocelots, and the still more subtle and treacherous boas and anacondas, that lurk in the tro; 

 forests, thus supplying a link in the great chain of renovation and destruction, which sums up 

 the history of animal life. If mankind are disposed to criticise either their looks or their man 

 ners, by applying standards of personal beauty or rules of moral conduct not made for monkeys. 

 we should still not overlook the fact, that in their native haunts they seem as perfectly to fulfil! 

 their destiny as any other of the works of nature. 



Those who are in the habit of satirizing the monkey creation, should reflect upon the infiniti 

 pleasure which children in all countries derive from the pranks and gambols of these creatures 

 Mary llowitt, with the cheerful eyes which happily find beauty and pleasure everywhere, seems 

 e this subject in its true light, when she savs — 



1 Monkey, little merry fellow, 

 Thou art Natnre'a Punchinello: 

 Full of fun as Puck could be, 

 Harlequin might learn of thee. 



" Look now at his o<M grimaces — 

 Saw you e'er such comic faces? 

 Now like learned judge*£edate, 



Now with nonsense in his pate. 



