He climbs upon a strong bar that crosses his cage, and, fixing his hands tightly, jumps up and down rapidly with his hind paws, bringing them down on the bar with a mighty thump, and shaking the whole place with the violence of his exertions. The keepers have their pet names for all the conspicuous monkeys. Jumbo is the largest of them, and next in order come Jim and Nancy. Nancy is not permitted to associate with the other monkeys, because she has a baby, and her companions would assuredly tease and worry both the mother and her child.
By special favour the reader may, perhaps, be permitted to see this interesting pair of animals, and it is pretty to watch the care which the parent takes of her offspring, and the extreme jealousy with which she regards the least movement of the spectator. She flies forward with grinning teeth and flashing eyes, shakes the bars of her cage violently, and chatters her wrathful defiance to the imagined enemy. The little one is in its way quite as shy, and whenever it takes alarm it leaps at its mother, clasps her round the neck and waist with its hands and feet, and lies, not on her back, as artists so frequently misrepresent, but under her belly, pressed so tightly to her body and buried so deeply in her fur, that at a little distance it cannot be distinguished. The rapidity of the movement is really astonishing. There is a quick spring, and in an instant the little creature is snugly settled in its natural cradle.
The baby looks ten times as old as the mother. Its face is puckered into a hundred wrinkles, and its skin hangs loose and flabby on its cheeks.
While I was watching this interesting pair, both mother and child became actuated by a common emotion. Their eyes sparkled with excitement; they glared anxiously through the bars of the cage, and they chattered with eager expectation. The keeper had put his hand into the pocket where he kept his apples, and the monkeys had seen the movement. The desired fruit was cut and given to the expecting animals, and then, I regret to say, the mother monkey displayed a more unamiable character than I should have thought her capable of possessing.
In spite of her evident fondness for her offspring, and her jealousy of strangers, she behaved very selfishly, snatched a piece of apple from her child and ate it herself, scolding it the while for daring to eat anything which she wanted.
Anubis Baboon.—[Page 255.]
Wanderoo Monkey.—[Page 255.]
The child, however, was by no means disposed to acquiesce in this appropriation, and when its mother came to take away the next piece of apple that was given to it, the little creature popped the morsel into its mouth. The piece of apple was, however, so large, and the young monkey’s mouth so small, that the greater portion projected from its jaws. The mother made a sharp snatch at the projecting portion, but this time the young one was too quick for her, and, striking the apple smartly with the back of its hand, drove it fairly into its mouth. I really thought that the little animal would be choked, so greatly were its cheeks distended. But by some ingenious process it contrived to nibble away the apple, and seemed rather pleased than inconvenienced by the huge morsel which it had forced into its mouth.