THE LARGER MONKEYS 
259 
frightful bite, and be away before he has time for 
defence or retaliation. The large Chinese Tcheli 
monkey outside the house will usually give an 
example of this form of monkey tactics. It is a long- 
legged, short-bodied, powerful creature, extremely 
heavy and contemplative in manner, and, it must be 
owned, an ugly, unpleasant-looking brute, though it 
is both loyal and attached to its keeper. If a visitor 
pretends to strike the keeper, or use any rough gesture 
to him, the monkey catches up and flings whatever 
missile happens to be at hand, straight at the 
offenders head, following the shot itself with a furious 
and sudden leap, which, if not stopped by the bars, 
would bring the animal full upon the head and 
shoulders of the person attacked. If nothing else is 
available, the monkey flings a handful of saw-dust, 
with violence and precision, thus preparing the way 
for the onset by partly blinding the enemy. Both the 
sudden leap and the missile are characteristic of 
monkey attack, though the last is the special weapon 
of the Chinese and Japanese apes. In the pine forests 
of their native country they fling the large and heavy 
pine-cones — not light fir-cones, but solid and sub- 
stantial missiles — at the heads of intruders ; and the 
pelting of coolies by the apes is a not unfrequent 
subject of Chinese and Japanese paintings. The 
Japanese ape occupies an outside cage at the opposite 
end of the house to that inhabited by the Tcheli 
monkey, which it much resembles. 
In the large cages in the centre of the Monkey 
