BLACK-EARED MARMOSET.
These are among the prettiest of small tropical monkeys from the New World. They are insect-feeders, and very delicate.
Photo by L. Medland, F.Z.S.] [North Finchley.
HUMBOLDT'S WOOLLY MONKEY.
This is the most popular monkey in England. He looks for all the world like a Negro, and has a most beautiful, soft, woolly coat. He is very tame, and loves nothing better than being petted.
In spite of all the varieties of temperament in the monkey tribe, from the genial little Capuchins to the morose old baboon, they nearly all have one thing in common—that is, the monkey brain. The same curious restlessness, levity, and want of concentration mark them all, except the large anthropoid apes. Some of these have without doubt power of reflection and concentration which the other monkeys do not possess. But in all the rest, though the capacity for understanding exists, the wish to please, as a dog does, and the desire to remember and to retain what it has learnt, seem almost entirely wanting. Egoism, which is a sign of human dementia, is a very leading characteristic of all monkeys. There is no doubt that the baboons might be trained to be useful animals if they always served one master. Le Vaillant and many other travellers have noted this. But they are too clever, and at the bottom too ill-tempered ever to be trustworthy, even regarded as "watches," or to help in minor manual labour. Baboons would make an excellent substitute for dogs as used in Belgium for light draught; but no one could ever rely on their behaving themselves when their master's eye was elsewhere.
Taken as a family, the monkeys are a feeble and by no means likeable race. They are "undeveloped" as a class, full of promise, but with no performance.
Photo by Ottomar Anschütz] [Berlin.