THE MONKEY FAMILY. 



79 



Still, if I could be convinced, that such a detail 

 would be necessary or instructive to the general 

 reader, I fancy, that I could succeed in demon- 

 strating to a nicety, the exact difference in length, 

 breadth, and thickness of an orang-outang's great 

 toe nail, compared with that of the Senegal baboon. 

 But this refined section of descriptive natural 

 history, has never been much to my liking ; and I 

 willingly make it over to those scientific gentlemen 

 who fancy that there is as much real knowledge to 

 be found in the closet as in the field. 



But before I enter, once for all, into the subject 

 as far as regards the true locality of monkeys, I 

 must draw a little longer on the patient reader's 

 time, and ask him to join me in taking an imagi- 

 nary view of this our terrestrial globe ; and to keep 

 in remembrance, particularly that portion of it, 

 where I have long been convinced, in my own 

 mind, that the entire monkey family is to be 

 found ; and to be found nowhere else, throughout 

 the whole world, saving on the rock of Gibraltar, 

 already noticed at the commencement of this 

 treatise. 



Ovid, pleasing and instructive poet, has beau- 

 tifully described the geographical sections of our 

 planet. He tells us, that two of these are in 

 everlasting snow. Two afford a temperate climate, 



