30 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



as the report of a gun. The commonest expressions are 

 "Wah!" and "Wak'-hool", and the visitor who can hear it 

 close at hand without jumping has good nerves. 



The big and solemn long-nosed monkey of Borneo (Nasdis 

 larvatus) utters in his native tree-top (overhanging water), a 

 cry like the resonant "honk" of a saxophone. He says plainly, 

 "Kee honk," and all that I could make of its meaning was that 

 it is used as the equivalent of "All's well." 



Of all the monkeys that I have ever known, either wild or 

 in captivity, the red howlers of the Orinoco, in Venezuela, 

 have the most remarkable voices, and make the most remark- 

 able use of them. The hyoid cartilage is expanded, — for 

 Nature's own particular reasons, — into a wonderful sound-box, 

 as big as an English walnut, which gives to the adult voice a 

 depth of pitch and a booming resonance that is impossible to 

 describe. The note produced is a prolonged bass roar, in 

 alternately rising and falling cadence, and in reality com- 

 prising about three notes. It is the habit of troops of red 

 howlers to indulge in nocturnal concerts, wherein four, five 

 or six old males will pipe up and begin to howl in unison. The 

 great volume of uncanny sound thus produced goes rolling 

 through the still forest, far and wide; and to the white explorer 

 who lies in his grass hammock in pitchy darkness, fighting off 

 the mosquitoes and loneliness, and wondering from whence 

 tomorrow's meals will come, the moral effect is gruesome and 

 depressing. 



In captivity the youthful howler habitually growls and 

 grumbles in a way that is highly amusing, and the absurd 

 pitch of the deep bass voice issuing from so small an animal is 

 cause for wonder. 



It is natural that we should look closely to the apes and 

 monkeys for language, both by voice and sign. In 1891 there 

 was a flood of talk on "the speech of monkeys," and it was not 

 until about 1904 that the torrent stopped. At first the knowl- 

 edge that monkeys can and do communicate to a limited 



