110 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
again to attract attention, and it seems as if it were moving in the inside of a wheel. The dab of 
white on the nose distinguishes it, and it comes from that paradise of Monkeys the Guinea Coast and 
the adjoining districts. 
The only one of the second group to be mentioned is 
THE TALAPOIN* 
This is a rather rare animal, and comes from the west coast of Africa, having been sent to 
Europe from the Gaboon. It is a pretty little creature (probably the smallest of these Monkeys), and 
is extremely gentle and intelligent. The skin is green, and the lower part of the body and the under 
part of the limbs are white. It has large ears, a black nose, and it has a kind of broad “ brutus ” on 
the forehead. 
There are some very interesting points about this little thing, which, in nearly all its construction, 
is like the rest of the Cercopitheci, or Guenons, 
but it has a large brain, a short muzzle, a 
thick, long partition in its nose, and only 
three points, or cusps, instead of four, on its 
last lower hind grinders. 
So far as is known, there are no dif- 
ferences between the habits of this little 
Monkey and the others from the west coast 
of Africa, and therefore its intelligence and 
deficiencies are sufficiently incomprehensible ; 
but they exhibit a fact of great importance, 
of which a hint was given in the conclusion 
of the description of the Mona Monkey. In 
the Talapoin, the last lower grinder differs 
from that of all Monkeys by the absence of 
an important part of its usual structure, and 
in the Mona the great air sac, which is in 
communication with the windpipe in most 
other Monkeys, is absent. This fact may be 
stated as follows: — That in animals closely 
resembling others of their group or genus 
material deficiencies in construction suddenly 
appear. Corresponding to these deficiencies are the absence of all or a great part of tail in genera the 
majority of whose species have a tail, and the inference to be drawn is that, notwithstanding all the 
members or species of a genus are related by a common ancestry, the descendants of a well-marked 
stock may exhibit peculiarities of structure which are not produced by alterations in the habits or 
surroundings of the animals. 
Such peculiar structures often relate to a remote ancestor, and it is remarkable that in the case of 
this Talapoin they give it a very faint resemblance to the American Monkeys. 
Some naturalists separate the Talapoin from the genus, and classify it in one of its own under the 
title Myiopithecus. 
The third group of the Guenons is represented by the well-known Monkey called 
THE GREEN MONKEY.f 
It has its classical name from two words which mean beauty and hair (kuWos and Op^-rplxos), and it 
must not be confounded with the Callitricha of Bufton, which is the same as the Grivet Monkey 
whose figure was drawn by the Egyptians. 
The Green Monkeys live in Senegal, and extend as far south as the River Niger, for it was on the 
* Ccrcopithecus talapoin. 
THE HEAD AND SHOULDERS OF THE TALAPOIN. 
I Ccrcopithecus callitrichus. 
