34 THE ENTELLTJS. 



four feet from the nose to the root of the tail, and the tail itself rather exceeds the body in 

 length. The color of this monkey when young is a greyish brown, excepting a dark brown line 

 along the back and over the loins. As the animal increases in years, the fur darkens in color, 

 chiefly by means of black hairs that are inserted at intervals. The face, hands, and feet are 

 black. 



It is a native of India, and fortunately for itself, the mythological religion is so closely 

 connected with it that it lives in perfect security. Monkeys are never short-sighted in spying 

 out an advantage, and the Entellus monkeys are no exception to the rule. Feeling themselves 

 masters of the situation, and knowing full well that they will not be punished for any delin- 

 quency, they take up their position in a village with as much complacency as if they had 

 built it themselves. They parade the streets, they mix on equal terms with the inhabitants, 

 they clamber over the houses, they frequent the shops, especially those of the pastrycooks 

 and fruit-sellers, keeping their proprietors constantly on the watch. 



Reverencing the monkey too much to afford active resistance to his depredations, the 

 shopkeepers have recourse to passive means, and by covering the roofs of their shops with 

 thorn-bushes, deprive the thieving deity of his chief point of vantage. Let it not be a matter 

 of wonder that a thief can be a god, for even the civilized Romans acknowledged Mercury 

 to be the god of thieves, and they only borrowed their mythology from a much more ancient 

 source. Certainly the Hoonuman gives practical proof of his claims to be the representative 

 of such a deity; for he possesses four hands with which to steal, and .neglects no oppor- 

 tunity of using them all. 



Conscious of the inrpropriety of its behavior, the monkey does not steal anything while 

 the proprietor is looking at it, but employs various subtle stratagems in order to draw off 

 the owner's attention while it filches his goods. Many ludicrous anecdotes of such crafty 

 tricks are known to every one who has visited India, and employed his eyes. 



The banyan-tree is the favored habitation of these monkeys ; and among its many 

 branches they play strange antics, undisturbed by any foes excepting snakes. These rep- 

 tiles are greatly dreaded by the monkeys, and with good reason. However, it is said that 

 the monkeys kill many more snakes in proportion to their own loss, and do so with a curiously 

 refined cruelty. A snake may be coiled among the branches of the banyan, fast asleep, 

 when it is spied by a Hoonuman. After satisfying himself that the reptile really is sleeping, 

 the monkey steals upon it noiselessly, grasps it by the neck, tears it from the branch, and 

 hurries to the ground. He then runs to a flat stone, and begins to grind down the reptile's 

 head upon it, grinning and chattering with delight at the writhings and useless struggles 

 of the tortured snake, and occasionally inspecting his work to see how it is progressing. 

 When he has rubbed away the poor animal's jaws, so as to deprive it of its poison-fangs, 

 he holds great rejoicings over his helpless foe, and tossing it to the young monkeys, looks 

 complacently at its destruction. 



Besides the reverence in which this animal is held through its deification, it has other 

 claims to respect through the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls 

 through the various forms of animal life. From the semblance of human form which is 

 borne by the monkeys, their frames were supposed to be the shrines of human souls that 

 had nearly reached perfection, and thereby made their habitations royal. Therefore, to insult 

 the Hoonuman is considered to be a crime equivalent to that of insulting one of the royal 

 family, while the murder of a monkey is high treason, and punished by instant death. 

 Many times have enthusiastic naturalists, or thoughtless "griffs," endangered their lives 

 by wounding or killing one of these sacred beings. The report of such a sacrilegious offence 

 is enough to raise the whole population in arms against the offender ; and those very men 

 who study cruelty as a science, and will inflict the keenest tortures on their fellow-beings 

 without one feeling of compunction, — who will leave an infirm companion to perish from 

 hunger and thirst, or the more merciful claws of the wild beasts, will be outraged in their 

 feelings because a monkey lias been wounded. 



Tlie hunters in India find these animals to be useful auxiliaries in some cases, though 

 tiresome in the main. They collect on boughs when a tiger or similar animal of prey passes 



