THE CLIMBERS OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



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CHAPTER XIIL 



THE CLIMBERS: BATS, SLOTHS, AND SIMI^. 



Bats: Their "Wonderful Organization — The Eox-Bat — Eaten by the Malays — Vampire Bats 

 — Their Blood-sucking Propensities — The Horseshoe Bat — The Nycteribia — The Plying 

 Squirrel — The Galeopithecus — The Anomalurus. — The Sloth : Pitiful Description given 

 of Him — His beautiful Organization for his peculiar Mode of Life — His rapid Movements 

 in the Trees — His Means of Defense — His Tenacity of Life — The Unau — The Ai — 

 Gigantic Primeval Sloths. — Monkeys: Good Climbers, but bad Walkers — Imperfectly 

 known to the Ancients — Similitudes and Differences between Man and Apes — The Chim- 

 panzee — The Gorilla — Du Chaillu's First Encounter with a Gorilla — The Gorilla and her 

 Young — The Orang-Utan, or Mias — Wallace's Accounts of Shooting the Orang — Their 

 Tenacity of Life — Size of the Orang — The Orang as a Combatant — The Orang fighting 

 the Crocodile and Python — Habits of the Orang — Wallace's Young Pet Orang — Tlie 

 Gibbons — Monkeys of the Old and New Worlds — The Semnopitheci — The Proboscis 

 Monkey — The Sacred Ape of the Hindus — The Cercopitheci — The Magots — The Cyno- 

 cephali, or Baboons — The Maimon — The Great Baboon of Senegal — The Derryas — The 

 Loris — Monkeys of the New World — Monkeys Distinguished by their Tails and Teeth — 

 The Wourali Poison — The Indian Blow-Pipe — Mildness of American Monkeys — The 

 Howling Monkeys — The Spider-Monkeys — The Fox-tail Monkeys — The Saimaris — Noc- 

 turnal Monkeys — The Domesticated Nocturnals — The Squirrel-Monkey. 



E are accustomed to consider all animals as embraced in one of three great 

 divisions : Beasts, or those that walk upon the earth ; Birds, or those that 

 fly in the air ; P^ishes, those that swim in the water. But closer investigation shows 

 us that this division is wholly inaccurate. There are walkers upon earth, as the 

 ostrich, which are not beasts ; swimmers in the water, as the whale, which are not 

 fishes ; and flyers in the air, like the bat, which are not birds. Then there are others 

 whose home is neither upon the earth, in the air, nor in the water. Though some are 

 able to fly a little in the air, others to walk a little on the ground, their home is upon 

 the branches of trees, their occupation is climbing. We will, regardless of other 

 peculiarities, designate them as climbers ; and will in this chapter group together a few 

 species which are notably characteristic of the Tropical World ; commencing with those 

 which, like the bat, most nearly resemble birds, and ending with those which, like the 

 monkey tribe, most nearly resemble man. 



When the sun has disappeared below the horizon, and night falls on the landscape, 

 which a little while ago was bathed in light, then from hollow trees, and creviced rocks, 

 and ruined buildings, a strange and dismal race comes forth. Silently hovering 

 through the glades of the woods, or skimming along the surface of the streams, it 

 catches the crepuscular or nocturnal moths, and serves like the swallow by day t^ 

 check the exuberant multiplication of the insect tribes. But while man loves the 

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