438 EXPLANATORY INDEX. 



because the branches are dead and brittle, and have been, 

 accidentally broken by the passage of the monkeys among 

 them, but with the deliberate intention of driving away a 

 supposed foe. 



Waterton never saw such a feat performed, and he is right 

 to say so. But there are other travellers quite as worthy of 

 credence as Waterton, who definitely state that they have been 

 eye-witnesses to such a proceeding. No one, I would presume, 

 would impugn a direct assertion of Mr. Alfred E. Wallace. 

 Yet in his well-known work on the Malay Archipelago, among 

 the islands of which he was continually travelling for more 

 than seven years, he has the following observations : — 



" I afterwards shot two adult females and two young ones 

 of different ages, all of which I preserved. 



" One of the females, with several young ones, was feeding 

 on a Durian tree with unripe fruit ; and as soon as she saw 

 us she began breaking off branches, and the great spiny 

 branches with every appearance of rage, causing such a shower 

 of missiles as effectually kept us from approaching too near 

 the tree. 



" This habit of throwing down branches when irritated has 

 been doubted, but I have, as here narrated, observed it my- 

 self on at least three separate occasions. It was, howevei', 

 always the female Mias who behaved in this way, and it may 

 be that the male, trusting more to his great strength and his 

 powerful canine teeth, is not afraid of any other animal, and 

 does not want to drive them away, while the parental instinct 

 of the female leads her to adopt this mode of defending her- 

 self and her young ones." 



Perhaps it may be said that Wallace travelled in the Malay 

 Archipelago, and wrote of the orang-outan, while Waterton 

 travelled in Guiana, and wrote of the Coaita which inhabits 

 that country. Still, his sweeping assertion included all 

 members of the monkey race, and moreover, a traveller and 

 naturalist, who spent much time in Guiana, writes as follows 

 of the Goaiti, or Quata : — * 



