160 THE MONKEY FAMILY. 



upon their eggs, precisely as tomtits or house-sparrows would do in 

 propagating their breed. 



One traveller writes about apes feeding upon " crabs, oysters, and 

 other shell fishes." Did these fishes frequent the trees in the forest? 



" The apes along the banks of the river Gambia," says another, 

 " are larger and more mischievous than in any other part of Africa. 

 The negroes dread them, and cannot travel alone in the country 

 without running the hazard of being attacked by these animals, who 

 often present them with a stick to fight." Brave and bountiful apes 

 of Gambia ! your magnanimity in offering a foe your own tough 

 club to fight you, puts me in mind of what really did happen in the 

 island of St Domingo, during the French revolutionary war. The 

 English having made an assault, a Spanish officer, starting from his 

 bed in wild distraction, ran unarmed to the walls. There he met 

 one of our Jack tars, who happened to have a cutlass in either hand. 

 Jack, seeing by the light of the full moon that the officer had nothing 

 wherewith to defend himself, immediately offered him a cutlass. The 

 Spaniard, subdued by such a noble, and by such an unexpected, act 

 of generosity on the part of the British tar, dropped on his knees, 

 and refused to take it. I question whether any ape in all Gambia 

 could have produced a scene like this. To be serious, an act like 

 this argues reason and reflection, both of which have been denied to 

 the brute creation, and only given by our Maker to man, " His 

 own image and likeness." 



But let me proceed. "We might dispense," another traveller 

 remarks, " with seeing a number of apes at Macacar, because a ren- 

 counter with them is often fatal. It is always necessary to be well 

 armed to defend ourselves against their attacks. . . . They have no 

 tails, and walk always erect on their two hind feet like men." 



Our author styles these voyagers, who have given us such question- 

 able narratives, " the least credulous ; " and he adds, that " they de- 

 serve most credit" Although I am not prone to take offence (non 

 ego Baucis offendar maculis] at occasional intervening stains on the 

 pages of natural history, still I cannot refrain here from entering a 

 protest against such palpable impossibilities as those which I have 

 just quoted. Had they been current in Don Quixote's time, they 

 would certainly have been burned in the court-yard of that adven- 



