A SPIDER MONKEY
This monkey is specially adapted for arboreal life. The tail acts as a fifth hand.
The Capuchins are, in the writer's opinion, the nicest of all monkeys. Many species are known, but all have the same round merry faces, bright eyes, pretty fur, and long tails. There is always a fair number at the Zoological Gardens. They are merry, but full of fads. One hates children and loves ladies; another adores one or two other monkeys, and screams at the rest. All are fond of insects as well as of fruit. A friend of the writer kept one in a large house in Leicestershire. It was not very good-tempered, but most amusing, climbing up the blind-cord first, and catching and eating the flies on the window-panes most dexterously, always avoiding the wasps. This monkey was taught to put out a lighted paper (a useful accomplishment) by dashing its hands on to the burning part, or, if the paper were twisted up, by taking the unlighted end and beating the burning part on the ground; and it was very fond of turning the leaves of any large book. This it did not only by vigorous use of both arms and hands, but by putting its head under too, and "heaving" the leaves over.
In the private room behind the monkey-house at the Zoo there are always a number of the rare and delicate monkeys from the New World, which cannot stand the draughts of the outer house, like the Capuchins and spider monkeys. The greater number of these come from tropical America. There, in the mighty forests, so lofty that no man can climb the trees, so dense that there is a kind of upper storey on the interlaced tree-tops, where nearly all the birds and many mammals live without descending to earth, forests in which there is neither summer nor winter, but only the changes from hour to hour of the equatorial day, the exquisite Marmosets, whose fur looks like the plumage and whose twittering voices imitate the notes of birds, live and have their being. They are all much alike in shape, except that the Lion Marmoset's mane is like that of a little lion clad in floss silk; and they all have sharp little claws, and feed on insects. The Pinché Marmoset from the Guiana forests has a face like a black Indian chief, with white plumes over his head and neck like those worn by a "brave" in full war-paint. Merchants who do business with Brazil very frequently import marmosets and the closely allied tamarins as presents for friends in England; the Brazilians themselves like to have them as pets also; so there is to some extent a trade demand for them.
Photo by Scholastic Photo. Co.] [Parson's Green.
PATAS MONKEY.
Found in West Africa. A large and brilliantly coloured species.
Photo by C. Reid] [Wishaw, N.B.