34 
THE ENTELLUS. 
four feet from the nose to the root of the tail, and the tail itself rather exceeds the body in 
length. The color of this monkey when yonng is a greyish brown, excepting a dark brown line 
along the back and over the loins. As the animal increases in years, the fnr darkens in color, 
chiefly by means of black hairs that are inserted at intervals. The face, hands, and feet are 
black. 
It is a native of India, and fortunately for itself, the mythological religion is so closely 
connected with it that it lives in perfect security. Monkeys are never short-sighted in spying 
out an advantage, and the Entellus monkeys are no exception to the rule. Feeling themselves 
masters of the situation, and knowing full well that they will not be punished for any delin- 
quency, they take up their position in a village with as much complacency as if they had 
built it themselves. They parade the streets, they mix on equal terms with the inhabitants, 
they clamber over the houses, they frequent the shops, especially those of the pastrycooks 
and fruit-sellers, keeping their proprietors constantly on the watch. 
Reverencing the monkey too much to afford active resistance to his depredations, the 
shopkeepers have recourse to passive means, and by covering the roofs of their shops with 
thorn-bushes, deprive the thieving deity of his chief point of vantage. Let it not be a matter 
of wonder that a thief can be a god, for even the civilized Romans acknowledged Mercury 
to be the god of thieves, and they only borrowed their mythology from a much more ancient 
source. Certainly the Hoonuman gives practical proof of his claims to be the representative 
of such a deity ; for he possesses four hands with which to steal, and neglects no oppor- 
tunity of using them all. 
Conscious of the impropriety of its behavior, the monkey does not steal anything while 
the proprietor is looking at it, but employs various subtle stratagems in order to draw off 
the owner’s attention while it filches his goods. Many ludicrous anecdotes of such crafty 
tricks aye known to every one who has visited India, and employed his eyes. 
The banyan- tree is the favored habitation of these monkeys ; and among its many 
branches they play strange antics, undisturbed by any foes excepting snakes. These rep- 
tiles are greatly dreaded by the monkeys, and with good reason. However, it is said that 
the monkeys kill many more snakes in proportion to their own loss, and do so with a curiously 
refined cruelty. A snake may be coiled among the branches of the banyan, fast asleep, 
when it is spied by a Hoonuman. After satisfying himself that the reptile really is sleeping, 
the monkey steals upon it noiselessly, grasps it by the neck, tears it from the branch, and 
hurries to the ground. He then runs to a flat stone, and begins to grind down the reptile’s 
head upon it, grinning and chattering with delight at the writhings and useless struggles 
of the tortured snake, and occasionally inspecting his work to see how it is progressing. 
When he has rubbed away the poor animal’s jaws, so as to deprive it of its poison-fangs, 
he holds great rejoicings over his helpless foe, and tossing it to the young monkeys, looks 
complacently at its destruction. 
Besides the reverence in which this animal is held through its deification, it has other 
claims to respect through the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls 
through the various forms of animal life. From the semblance of human form which is 
borne by the monkeys, their frames were supposed to be the shrines of human souls that 
had nearly reached perfection, and thereby made their habitations royal. Therefore, to insult 
the Hoonuman is considered to be a crime equivalent to that of insulting one of the royal 
family, while the murder of a monkey is high treason, and punished by instant death. 
Many times have enthusiastic naturalists, or thoughtless “ griffs,” endangered their lives 
by wounding or killing one of these sacred beings. The report of such a sacrilegious offence 
is enough to raise the whole population in arms against the offender ; and those very men 
who study cruelty as a science, and will inflict the keenest tortures on their fellow-beings 
without one feeling of compunction, — who will leave an infirm companion to perish from 
hunger and thirst, or the more merciful claws of the wild beasts, will be outraged in their 
feelings because a monkey has been wounded. 
The hunters in India find these animals to be useful auxiliaries in some cases, though 
tiresome in the main, They collect on boughs when a tiger or similar animal of prey passes 
