MONKEYS WHO WORK. 



195 



nuts, gathering none but the ripe ones ; and, 

 what is more, he picks only as many as his mas- 

 ter wishes. 



So useful is this animal that gathering nuts 

 has become, one may say, his trade, in that part 

 of the world. A man, having captured and 

 trained a gang of them, marches them around 

 the country to get in the harvest, hiring them 

 out on different plantations. Then, when the 

 nuts are all picked, or the laborers too numer- 

 ous, gangs of them are taken to the English 

 colonies at Cape Town, and hired out like any 

 workmen, or coolies, as they are called. 



A Siamese ape has reached a step higher, it 

 is said. The story is told by an Austrian who 

 lived in Siam that this ape is able to tell by the 

 taste whether coin is good or bad, and mer- 

 chants employ him for the purpose of detecting 

 counterfeits. 



Within a few months a gentleman of India 

 has tried his hand at training monkeys, and he 

 reports to the Asiatic Society of Bengal his 

 success in teaching them to pull punkahs. A 

 punkah — perhaps you know — is an immense 

 fan, hung from the ceiling, and moved back and 

 forth by means of a rope outside the room. It 

 keeps a whole room cool, and in that climate 

 is necessary to enable a white man to eat or 

 sleep with any comfort. A monkey who can 



