MONKEYS. 
233 
saw it and ran to it and caught it up and pressed it to her 
bosom. But it could not lay hold of her ; it fell Again 
and again she raised it and encouraged it to clasp her in 
its arms, as it had always done. She did not seem to 
understand that it was dead. At length she held it to her 
bosom with one hand, and tried to run on three, lest the 
black dog might return. When she got to a safe tree, she 
clambered up as best 
she could, hugging her 
precious charge with one 
arm, and there she gave 
way to her grief and 
cried piteously, while a 
kite sailed grimly round 
the tree, as if claiming his lungoor. 
own. I have often wondered what she did in the end with 
the little lifeless body. I cannot believe she left it to the 
kite. It would not surprise me to know that she buried it, or 
laid it in some hollow and covered it with leaves and ston&s. 
As I watched the old mother in the Mango tree, picking 
and eating the juicy shoots, with her child in her lap, 
my ear caught the sound of a woodpecker hammering 
with unusual energy. It was not the quick, fierce rap 
