RARE AND BEAUTIFUL MONKEYS 251 
movements, and extremely short-tempered. If it is 
not fed when it stretches out its imperious little hand, 
it flies into a passion at once, making ugly faces, 
shaking the bars of its cage, and uttering shrill bat- 
like cries ; for the squirrel-monkey is by no means 
the silky little pet which it appears, but a bold, 
carnivorous little creature, though its prey is only 
butterflies and the insects of the Guiana forest. 
Another pretty and extremely rare Central American 
monkey, lived for some time at the Zoo during the 
summer of 1893. This was the Negro Tamarin, also 
a Guiana species, which had not been seen in London 
for twenty years. Two of these were still alive when 
the writer visited them in their private apartments at 
the Zoo. Seated on a small strip of Turkey carpet, 
they looked like statuettes of the negro chieftains 
whose portraits adorn the works of travellers in 
Central Africa. Each was about seven inches high, 
with head, limbs, and body in perfect proportion. 
Their faces, hands, and feet were highly polished 
ebony- black, with black bead-like eyes, and black nails, 
or rather claws; for the Tamarins, like the squirrel- 
monkey and the marmosets, are insect-feeders. The 
fur is close and silky, and covers all the body except 
the face, ears, and hands. The back is “shot” and 
mottled with wavy bars of orange, an ornament which 
seems peculiar to the monkeys of tropical America. 
Unlike the rest of its near relations, the little “negro” 
has one thoroughly monkey feature, large, sharp- 
pointed ears, too like the impish forms of Fuseli to 
