The Guenons occasionally breed in menageries, and thus opportunities have been afforded of watching their treatment of, and method of educating, their little ones. One in Paris had three baby Monkeys, one after the other, and succeeded in rearing one, the others dying. She constantly carried it, holding it close to her, so that its little mouth was always close to the breast; but after a while, as it became stronger, it clung on by itself, holding on fast with its hands to the mother’s fur, and helped itself whenever it thought fit. Then the mother appeared to pay no especial attention to the little one, and jumped and rushed about as if it had not the little burden. The father was anything but paternal, and boldly neglected the education of his child; in fact, he was quite indifferent to the mother as well, and even behaved brutally by seeking to quarrel with her. Once or twice he maltreated her, and pinched the baby, so he was locked up by himself.
This careless treatment doubtless accounts for the rapid independence of the young of the Guenons, who soon retaliate on their fathers and mothers for all the enjoyments they did not have at their hands, by endless teasings and scoldings. But all Monkeys are not thus unpaternal and unnatural, and the Baboon is singularly affectionate. At the time that the Grivet—the above-mentioned Guenon—was seen in one cage outraging all good feeling, two Chacma Baboons were in another, and the difference in their behaviour was most edifying. In the one cage sat the solitary mother and its offspring, the father having been removed for his bad temper and brutal conduct; and in the other were several male Baboons surrounding two Baboon mothers and their two little ones, caressing the mothers with the most pronounced evidence of tenderness of feeling, taking them in their arms and pressing them to their hearts, and embracing them in a manner quite human. They squabbled about who was to have the pleasure of carrying the Baboon babies, and after having passed them from one to the other, returned each one to its own mother.
As these Guenons walk on all-fours and but rarely take on the erect posture, which, moreover, they cannot maintain, their muscles are not exactly the same as in the Troglodytes and Orangs, but they resemble those of the Semnopitheci. The Guenons, like the Macaques and Baboons—those great runners on all-fours—have a special muscle to assist in pulling the shoulder-blade forward, and thus to assist the forward motion of the body. Then, in order to drag the elbow backwards in moving on all-fours, and to assist also in climbing, one of the large muscles of the back sends a slip to the back of the elbow. Climbing is also assisted by an addition to the gluteal or buttock muscles, which is called the scansorius or climbing muscle. And in the foot the front muscle of the leg has two masses; one sends a tendon which goes to the inner and front bone of the ankle, and the other right under the foot to the inner side of the long bone (metatarsal), which supports the toe-thumb.
The result of its action is to turn in the foot with a view to holding on. Finally, the two long muscles which flex or bend down the toe-thumb and the other toes are not separate, but are connected by their tendons. So that there is not great independence of the toe-thumb, but all the toes act more or less simultaneously very readily. But the other muscles of it give it more mobility than in man. Their muscular energy is immense, and their power of using the thumb is very considerable, and they pick out each other’s vermin with well-known ease.
In separating the numerous kinds of Guenons into kinds or species, paying a good amount of attention to their internal as well as external structures, that is to say, to their teeth and skull, as well as to their form, it becomes evident that some large ones form a group which closely resemble the others, but which still have more general likeness to the Monkeys which form the subject of the next chapter—the Macaques. These have been placed in a separate genus, but the necessity for doing so is not apparent, especially when the principles of the true nature of classification have been thoroughly comprehended. So the so-called genus Cercocebus (κέρκος, tail; κῆβας, monkey) is omitted, and the Monkeys included in it by some authors are to be considered as the kinds which link on the Baboons and Macaques to the Guenons. Besides these, some Guenons are stronger and stouter than others, their skins being green, or tinted more or less with that colour, and another is of a bright red colour. So that several sets of the Guenons may be established for the sake of convenience—1. The smaller kinds usually with prominent white markings. 2. One having a green skin and a black nose, and only three points or cusps on its hind lower molars. 3. The larger kinds with decidedly green tints, one being bright red. 4. And the group often called Cercocebus, which resemble the others, but have a fifth cusp on the last lower grinder on each side.
Amongst the first kind the Diana Monkey is very well known, and visitors to the Monkey-house in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park usually pay much attention to this most determined and pretty romp.
THE DIANA MONKEY.[40]
This native of Western Africa inhabits the woods of the Guinea Coast, and of the banks of the Congo, and it is found in the island of Fernando Po. It was known to European naturalists before the year 1700, and it has always been prized for its pretty fur and gay temper.
The goddess Diana has been honoured by being associated with this Monkey on account of a crescent-shaped white band of long hair stretching across the forehead (she being goddess of the crescent-shaped moon). It is about eighteen inches long when full grown, and the tail is longer than the body, and the fur is very pretty. The crescent of white hairs has dark edges, and the top of the head is broad and dull grey, spotted with green; the ears are dark and the face also; and the beard and whiskers are white, and the first of these projects like a goat’s. The broad and upper chest is white, and this colour is continued under the arms, which at their termination are black-grey. The middle of the back is a dark red-brown, and the belly is white with orange tints, and these colours are continued down the inside of the thighs. Outside these and the flanks are ash-grey and greenish. As another Monkey from the same region has a white band across the forehead, the Diana has been confounded with it, and hence very different descriptions of the colouring will be obtained by reading different authors, and even F. Cuvier jumbled the Diana and this Diadem Monkey together. Very little is known about them in their wild state, and in captivity they show very adverse dispositions; sometimes they are gay and full of fun, and at others morose and snappish. We once saw one of them in its cage in the Zoological Gardens pull its mate, a small Sykes’ Monkey, from the top to the bottom by a well-directed pull of the tail, and the proceeding reminded one of a very energetic mistress, whose servants were inattentive, tugging at a bell-rope. The puller was chattering and grimacing at his visitors all the time that the pulled was hanging on to everything that came in its way during its forced descent; and when it came to the bottom it scrambled about and rushed up to its little house again as if it were a frequent and unwilling exercise. The Diana also stole its companion’s food, such as a piece of apple, by putting her arms around its neck, and squeezing the morsel against its nose, so that it was obliged to drop it.
Mrs. Bowditch, in describing her voyage home from Western Africa, gives an interesting account of a Diana Monkey which was on board. “We made acquaintance,” she says, “very suddenly, and, to me, disagreeably, for I had not till then conquered the foolish aversion with which these animals always inspired me. It was a dead calm, the wheel was lashed, and all, save myself, below—nothing round us but sea and sky, and I had sheltered myself with a book in a corner protected from the equatorial sun. Suddenly, and without noise, something leaped upon my shoulders, and the tail which encircled my throat convinced me that Mr. Jack was my assailant. My first impulse was to beat him off, in which case I should probably have received some injury; but fortunately I sat perfectly still, and twisting himself round he brought his face opposite to mine and stared at me. I endeavoured to speak kindly to him, upon which he grinned and chattered, seated himself on my knees, and carefully examined my hands. He then tried to pull off my rings, and was proceeding to a bite for this purpose when I gave him some biscuit which happened to lie beside me, and making a bed for him with a handkerchief he settled himself comfortably to sleep, and from that moment we were sworn allies. The amusement afforded to me and others by Jack made him tolerated when his mischievous propensities would otherwise have condemned him to perpetual confinement. He was often banished to an empty hen-coop, but as this made no impression upon him I always tried to prevent it, which he knew so well that when he had done wrong he either hid himself or sought refuge near me. Much more effect was produced by taking him within sight of the Panther, who always seemed most willing to devour him. On these occasions I held him by the tail in front of the cage, but long before I reached it, knowing where he was going, he pretended to be dead—his eyes were closed quite fast, and every limb was as stiff as if there were no life in him. When taken away he would open one eye a little to see whereabouts he might be, but if he caught a glimpse of the cage it was instantly closed, and he became as stiff as before. He clambered into the hammocks, stole the men’s knives, tools, handkerchiefs, and even the nightcaps off their heads, all of which went into the sea. When biscuit was toasting between the bars of the caboose, and the dried herbs boiling in the tin mugs, he would take the former out and carry it away, and take out the latter and trail them along the planks; if he burnt his hands he desisted for a day or two; and he often regaled the Parrots with the biscuit, biting it in small pieces, and feeding them with the utmost gravity. At other times he would knock their cages over, lick up the water thus spilled, eat the lumps of sugar, and pull the birds’ tails: and in this manner he killed a beautiful green Pigeon belonging to the steward, a specimen of which I never saw in any collection. For this he was flogged and imprisoned three days; and half an hour after he was let out I met him scampering round the deck with two blue-faced Monkeys on his back, which he often carried about in this manner. When he thought fit to ride, he would watch behind a cask on the days the Pigs were let loose, dart on to their backs as they passed, dig his nails into them to keep himself on, and the faster they ran and the more they squealed the happier he seemed to be. His most important misdemeanours, however, were performed to the injury of his fellow Monkeys, of whom he was very jealous. The smaller ones were very obsequious to him, and when he called them by a peculiar noise, they came, hanging their heads and looking very submissive, and in one week two were drowned out of sheer malice. I saw him throw the first overboard, and the poor little thing swam after us some time, but the ship was going too fast for even a rope to be effectually thrown out in the hope he would cling to it. During one of the calms we so often met with, the men had been painting the outside of the ship, and leaving their pots and brushes on the deck, went down to dinner. No one was above but myself, the helmsman, and Jack. The latter beckoned and coaxed a black Monkey to him; then seizing him by the neck, took a brushful of white paint, and deliberately covered him with it in every direction. The helmsman and I burst into a laugh, upon which Jack, dropping his victim, flew up the rigging into the maintop, where he stood with his black nose between the bars peeping at what was going on below. The little metamorphosed beast began licking himself, but the steward being summoned, he washed him with turpentine, and no harm was sustained. Many attempts were made to catch the rogue aloft, but he eluded all, and when he was driven down by hunger, he watched his opportunity and sprang from one of the ropes on to my lap, where he knew he should be safe. I fed and interceded for him, so he escaped with only a scolding, which he received with an appearance of shame which in him was rather ludicrous.”