REMINISCENCES FROM THE MELBOURNE ZOO. 
27 
and put back into his cage. Apart from limping for a few days he 
gave no other indication of injury from his wonderful flight into space. 
KIDNAPPING. 
Whenever there is a new baby in a monkey house the camp is 
immediately split into two. There are two supremely happy creatures 
in it — the mother and the father; and there are a number of supremely 
unhappy ones — all the other females. The mother rather unnecessarily 
flaunts her great happiness before the others, and has no compunction 
whatever when she witnesses their ill-concealed jealousy. The unblest 
ones beg for a small share in her joy, but she guards her infant with 
a suspicious watchfulness that will not allow one of them even to touch 
it, let alone nurse it. They then fall back upon the doubtful pleasure 
of watching her every movement for the purpose of criticising the 
mistakes she is making in her mode of rearing it. They begin interfer- 
ing with her practices, and telling her how she ought to do it all, just 
like their similarly-situated human friends, their sole qualification being 
that they have never had one of their own. When, very like human 
mothers, she resents this well-meant interference with her domestic 
routine, one of the self-appointed committee of control — usually the 
strongest-minded and ablest-bodied of them — decides that for the sake 
of the infant it must be rescued from its silly mother. She knows that 
the mother will never consent to give it up of her own accord, so that it 
is useless to try to reason with her. Stronger measures are imperative, 
and to be sure of success, she must use guile. Thereupon begins one 
of the most pathetic comedies of animal life. She begins stealthily 
creeping up to the mother, who, keenly alert to all the movements of her 
envious neighbors, at once takes alarm, and clasps her baby tightly to 
her breast as she scowls at the approaching foe. At once assuming a 
mask of complete indifference, the crafty monkey stops and looks about 
the cage and at everything but the timid mother, whose suspicions are 
lulled into a false security as she resumes her former and never-ending 
occupation of attending to her baby’s toilet. The designing female at 
once takes the opportunity of creeping a little nearer her goal. Again 
the mother notices her movements, and as she hugs her baby tighter 
she looks up for an explanation. The other turns without a moment’s 
hesitation and shrilly scolds one or two other females who are watching 
her most anxiously from a safe distance, and who have some glimmering 
of an idea that all is not well for the baby in the movements of the 
leader of their band. The mother’s attention is thus drawn to the 
intent scrutiny of these onlookers, and she joins in the chorus of hate 
