ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
35 
THE HOWLER ROARING 
Red in his baby days roared tremendously. The sounds were 
utterly out of all proportion to his size. 
Truly, the development of the howler is 
rapid! Here was an infant half a year old, 
but seventeen inches long (his mother measured 
fifty inches) and demanding meat. I have al¬ 
ways noted the fondness of most monkeys for 
meat, and believe they actually need it in their 
diet, but never before have realized its necessity 
to an animal so young. 
The symptoms of rickets had advanced to the 
stage that Red was unable to do more than 
grovel along the floor. Neither arms nor legs 
had strength sufficient to raise his body. The 
meat experiment convinced me that Red must 
no longer be treated as an infant, and at once 
his diet was altogether changed. Incongruous 
as it may seem, he was now given everything 
wholesome that he would eat, and he refused 
practically nothing except the monotonous 
cereals of his short “baby” days. Day by day 
the list of tested and assimilated foods grew 
longer. Red was given boiled and baked po¬ 
tatoes, beans, peas, carrots, cauliflower,—in fact 
all kinds of vegetables. He would eat heartily 
of all kinds of meat, with absolutely no prefer¬ 
ence whether broiled, fried, roasted or boiled. 
His favorite item was spaghetti and this he de¬ 
lighted to hold in two writhing handfuls, de¬ 
vouring it strand by strand. He was fed three 
times a day, being provided with a small high 
chair and tray beside our table. With each 
meal he had plenty of milk,—and he consumed 
about a wineglassful. 
Upon this formidable diet (which has con¬ 
tinued up to the present time without elimin¬ 
ation) Red passed through a transformation 
covering a period of about three months. His 
weak legs soon showed an inclination to sup¬ 
port his body in wobbling fashion, and within 
six weeks more he was up and walking. His 
eyes grew darker and more expressive, and his 
tail became thickly coated with reddish hair. 
The hair of the body grew long and wavy, and 
acquired a golden sheen. All indications con¬ 
firmed our discovery of a successful diet for 
the howler,—plenty of meat and a variety of 
vegetables. 
To my mind there is yet another important 
factor in the treatment of these delicate little 
people of the jungle, which receives too little 
thought, and that is their mental condition. I 
believe that many monkeys may be mentally 
ill and in that case, the offered diet is of little 
avail. Red has been practically a member of 
our family. He has been taught cleanly habits, 
and has the run of the house. He has his 
favorite nooks and spots where he sprawls for a 
morning sun bath. A wicker basket with some 
bits of blanket serve as his bed, and when he 
is tired he hops in and takes a nap. He is 
satisfactorily nourished and also mentally well, 
and we are convinced that under these condi¬ 
tions the howler is not a “delicate” species. This 
was pretty well demonstrated by an experience 
of the past summer. We motor daily from our 
home to the Sound for an afternoon bath, and 
Red accompanies us on all our trips, sitting on 
the sand of the beach, but making friends with 
no one unless they are altogether to his liking. 
Once after having left the howler in charge 
of two little girls who are very fond of him, 
we returned to discover that a boy had strolled 
in from the amusement park, and was con¬ 
tributing to Red’s entertainment by feeding him 
generously from that homely combination con¬ 
sisting of a frankfurter, roll and sauerkraut. 
Red had partaken of the triple combination, but 
most heartily of the first and last ingredients. 
Later on he was favored by the parking attend¬ 
ant, who gave him a copious drink of sarsapa¬ 
rilla. We were worried about the afternoon’s 
dissipation, but that evening our cook contrib¬ 
uted to our anxiety by discovering all too late 
that Red had wrecked the frosted decoration of 
a lemon-merangue pie, and also had entered 
deeply into the foundation of the pie itself, in¬ 
cluding the crust. While we have since taken 
all precautions to prevent repetitions of such 
happenings, our howler was in no way affected 
by such dietary carousing, which again leads 
