286 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



and bearing, have even carried it into realms where it could only be 

 productive of mischief, and have thereby caused a confusion which 

 will not readily be cleared up. To discuss monkeys at all has 

 therefore become a bold undertaking, for, in speaking of them, one 

 runs a risk either of degrading the reputed ancestor, or, through 

 him, of offending the supposed descendants — to say nothing of the 

 inevitable abuse of the most pitiable kind which ill-mannered 

 fanatics, blindly struggling against the spirit of the age, hurl at 

 him who ventures to utter the word monkey. Nevertheless, the 

 monkey question will not readily disappear from the order of the 

 day; for these animals, so evidently our nearest relatives in the 

 animal kingdom, are much too deserving of our sympathy, to allow 

 of our being deterred by sentimental considerations from investi- 

 gating their life and habits and comparing them with our own, that 

 we may so enlarge our knowledge at once of monkeys and of men. 

 The following is a contribution to such knowledge: — 

 A general life-picture such as I wish to sketch is not easily con- 

 densed into few words, since the different species of monkeys vary 

 so widely. There are about four hundred, or, at any rate, consider- 

 ably more than three hundred species, and they inhabit every part 

 of the world with the single exception of Australia; but they are 

 found chiefly in the countries within the tropics. In America their 

 range extends from twenty-eight degrees of southern latitude to the 

 Caribbean Sea; in Africa it stretches from thirty-five degrees southern 

 latitude to the Straits of Gibraltar; in Europe their occurrence is 

 limited to the Eock of Gibraltar, where, from time immemorial, a 

 troop of about twenty magots or Barbary macaques have existed, 

 and are now protected and preserved by the garrison of the Fort.^' 

 Forests and rocky mountains, which they ascend to a height of more 

 than 8000 feet, are their favourite habitats. In such places they 

 remain, with the exception of a few species, year in year out, giving 

 heed to the rotation of the seasons only to the extent of undertaking 

 more or less extensive expeditions through the forest in search 

 of ripening fruits, or ascending the mountains at the beginning of 

 the warm season, and descending again before cold weather sets in; 

 for, though they may be met with even in snow-covered regions, 



