248 



Marvels of the Universe 



I'holo bit'] 



[Fli/hr d- Itshnr 



THE GLOBE FISH 



This fisK of remarkable form is brilliantly coloured, and covered with spines. At ordinary times it is much more fish- 

 like, but when danger threatens it puffs itself out and erects its spines. 



Himalayas. Assam, China, or even Tibet. Here it underwent isolation and an independent 

 de^'elopment, which produced in the male not onh' a verv bright and peculiar coloration, but 

 exaggerated the projection of the nose until it grew into the drooping proboscis which assumes such 

 a quaint form in the unusually fine specimen of a fullv developed male shown in the accompanying 

 illustration — a specimen from \\'est Borneo in the Natural History Museum at Munich (Bavaria). 



Nature is constantly repeating herself, and seems ever and anon to try experiments in peculiar 

 developments which lead to nothing — or to nothing of much apparent use — until exactly the right 

 thing is hit upon ; and then the new idea runs away with Nature and is carried out in the fullest 

 possible manner. The human genus is a bundle of Nature's plagiarisms of her earlier manner. The 

 upright position and bi-pedal walk have been tried in reptiles and in birds and in many types of 

 mammals ; notably in the far-back lemur ancestors or collaterals of man. The projecting nose 

 (reaching its highest development in the white man) is no new idea, but possibly also showed 

 itself in certain extinct lemurs, and has attained a comical distinctness (if incomplete and without 

 any cartilaginous bridge) in the East Asiatic Proboscis Monkeys. 



The male Long-nosed monkey is very remarkable for his coloration. The bare face and drooping 

 proboscis are pink, like the face of a white man ; and so we find this monkey is called " \Vhite Man " 

 b}^ the natives of West Borneo. The top of the head is bright chestnut, the whiskers, shoulders 

 and chest are ginger-colour, the hair of the arm-pits being white and that of the upper arm chest- 

 nut, while the lower arm is grey fringed with white. The hind limbs are grey, and the hair of the 

 hind parts is reddish, and that of the back deep, glossy chestnut-red. In vivid contrast with 

 these tints of chestnut, yellow-brown and ash-grey are the lower back and tail, which are pure 

 white. The Long-Nosed Monkej- lives mainl}' on lea\'es ; and the adult male grows to a con- 

 siderable size — as large as an average-sized baboon. 



