VI. 



GILA THE SECOND. 



It is hard to take a monkey seriously. His 

 business in life seems to be to amuse and enter- 

 tain everybody who comes near him. 



Whether he is so funny in his own native 

 forests as he is when we get him with us, is not 

 really known, but it is supposed that while young 

 all monkeys are playful. Years and the respon- 

 sibilities of life soon bring gravity to the most 

 frivolous. To support life, and to preserve the 

 same in the midst of enemies, is certainly a so- 

 bering process. 



Taken from his wild life, tamed, protected and 

 surrounded with comfort in his own climate, the 

 monkey throws himself into his part with an en- 

 thusiasm and relish that leaves all other animals 

 behind, and makes him the drollest, as he is gen- 

 erally the dearest, of pets. 



We change all that, however, when we intro- 

 duce him to a climate where he must always 

 shiver. A monkey in our part of the world is 

 no more like his brother in the tropics than a 

 calm, fur-clad Eskimo is like his hot-headed, 

 unclad fellow-man of latitude nothing. 



