132 NATURAL BISTORT. 
In the Merchant of Venice there is allusion made to the fanciful notion of Monkey— and 
probably it was Ape — keeping. Shy lock has lost his daughter, and Tubal comes to give him news of 
her fast living, and of Antonio. 
Tabal. One of them showed me a ring, that he had of your daughter for a Monkey. 
Shylock. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah, when I was a 
bachelor : I would not have given it for a wilderness of Monkeys. 
In a “ New History of Ethiopia, being a full and accurate description of the Kingdom of 
Abyssinia, vulgarly” (writes Broderip), “though erroneously, called the Empire of Prester John, by 
the learned Job Ludolphus” (1682), there is a grand engraving of Apes, with this superscription : — 
“1. Scrambling about the mountains. 
2. Bemoeving great huge stones to come at the wormes. 
3. Sitting upon Ant-hills and devouring the little creatures. 
4. Throwing sand or dust in the eyes of wild beastes that came to sett upon them.” 
The following is illustrated by the above : — 
“ Of Apes there are infinite flocks up and down in the mountains thereabout, a thousand and 
more together : there they leave no stone unturned. If they meet with one that two or three cannot 
lift, they call for more, and all for the sake of the wormes that lye under : a sort of dyet which they 
relish exceedingly. They are very greedy after Emmets ; so that having found an Emmet-hill, they 
presently surround it, and laying their fore paws with the hollow downward upon the Ant-heap, as fast as 
the Emmets creep into their trecherous palmes, they lick them off with great comfort into their stomachs; 
and there they will lye til there is not an Emmet left. They are also pernicious to fruit and apples, 
and will destroy whole fields and gardens unless they be carefully looked after. For they are very 
cunning, and will never venture in till the return of their spies, which they send always before, and 
who, giving information that all things are safe, in they rush with their whole body, and make a quick 
dispatch. Therefore they go very quiet and silent to their prey, and if their young ones chance make 
