306 TROPICAL NATURE itr 
MAMMALIA 
Monkeys 
The highest class of animals, the Mammalia, although 
sufficiently abundant in all equatorial lands, are those 
which are least seen by the traveller. There is, in fact, 
only one group—the monkeys—which are at the same time 
pre-eminently tropical, and which make themselves perceived 
as one of the aspects of tropical nature. They are to be met 
with in all the great continents and larger islands, except 
Australia, New Guinea, and Madagascar, though the latter island 
possesses the lower allied form of Lemurs; and they never 
fail to. impress the observer with a sense of the exuberant 
vitality of the tropics. They are pre-eminently arboreal in 
their mode of life, and are consequently most abundant and 
varied where vegetation reaches its maximum development. 
In the East we find that maximum in Borneo, and in the 
West African forests; while in the West the great forest 
plain of the Amazon stands pre-eminent. It is near the 
equator only that the great Anthropoid apes, the gorilla, 
chimpanzee, and orang-utan are found, and they may be met 
with by any persevering explorer of the jungle. The gibbons, 
or long-armed apes, have a wider range in the Asiatic con- 
tinent and in Malaya, and they are more abundant both in 
species and individuals. Their plaintive howling notes may 
often be heard in the forests, and they are constantly to be 
seen sporting at the summits of the loftiest trees, swinging 
suspended by their long arms, or bounding from tree to tree 
with incredible agility. They pass through the forest at a 
height of a hundred feet or more, as rapidly as a deer will 
travel along the ground beneath them. Other monkeys of 
various kinds are more abundant and usually less shy ; and in 
places where firearms are not much used they will approach 
the houses and gambol in the trees undisturbed by the 
approach of man. The most remarkable of the tailed monkeys 
of the East is the proboscis monkey of Borneo, whose long 
fleshy nose gives it an aspect very different from that of most 
of its allies. 
In tropical America monkeys are even more abundant 
than in the East, and they present many interesting pecu- 
