474 General Notes. 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
THE Monkey AS A SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR.—In the very 
interesting little “ zoo,” which now forms quite an attractive depart- 
ment of the National Museum at Washington, there is a fine male 
grivet monkey (Cercopithecus erythræa), who shares a large cage 
with four opossums. Although he has a bad record as a fighter 
and biter of human beings, he takes kindly to his strange compan- 
ions, and they have been the best of friends from the first. He 
spends many an hour in searching the fur of the opossums, and 
always sleeps with them in the family bed of straw. A few days 
ago the attention of the attendant was drawn to the monkey cage 
by the excited behavior of the crowd in front of it, and on going 
to ascertain the cause a strange and ludicrous sight was revealed to 
his astonished gaze. 
In the middle of the cage sat the monkey, holding one of the 
opossums in his lap, with her belly uppermost, and her head under 
is arm. She submitted quite passively, far more so than when 
the attendants had previously made a similar examination. The 
monkey had just discovered the marsupial pouch of the opossum, 
and was diligently investigating it. ad he not been a close 
observer it certainly would have remained unseen, for it was s0 
tightly closed as to be perfectly invisible in its normal condition. 
The monkey carefully lifted the outer wall of the pouch, and pee 
into the cavity. Then he reached in with his hand, felt about for 
a moment, and to the astonishment of everybody took out a tiny 
young opossum, about two inches long, hairless, blind, and very 
helpless, but alive and kicking. Jock held it up to the light, 
where he could get a good view of it, scrutinized it with the air of 
a savant, and presently returned it to the pouch, very carefully. 
After replacing it he looked into the pouch again, and presently 
drew out another for examination, which he looked at with solemn 
interest, smelled of it, and then carefully put it back. It was thus 
it became known to the attendants that the old female opossum 
had the young ones, which had previously been looked for in vaim. 
— W. T. Hornaday. 
