New World monkey

“ The Sapajous are the hardiest, the most intelligent and in some respects the most interesting of the New World monkeys. They all possess the prehensile (or grasping) tail, which is not found on any Old World monkey, and the use made of it is a constant source of wonder. Monkeys of this species are quite common in captivity, and their wrinkled brows and serious countenances give them an appearance of being burdened with cares,—which most captive monkeys certainly are! These are the unfortunate creatures which so often come to grief on hand-organs. ”

“ The most beautiful and entertaining of all monkeys are these New World species. No person clever at interpreting the ways of animals would fail to consider them far more clever and sympathetic than the melancholy anthropoid apes, while for appearance they have no equals. Probably the most attractive monkey in Europe is a South American one now in the London Zoological Gardens. It was first mentioned to Europeans by Baron von Humboldt, who saw it in the cabin of an Indian on the Orinoco. These forest Indians of South America are gentle creatures themselves. ”

“ The relations between the monkey and his master ought to be friendly, and, when the first causes for fear and motives to anger have been suppressed, there will remain on the animal's part only feelings of respect. He will recognize his inferiority to man, and will respect him without fear. These lively and nervous animals, abruptly torn from their native wilds, to be shut up and treated in an unnatural manner, preserve in captivity their good-humor and intelligence to a remarkable degree.
The monkeys I have kept have been both of New World and Old World species. ”

“ All of the American monkeys are true monkeys, but in the old world there is no line between ape, baboon, gibbon, macaque and monkey. Most of the American species (the marmosets excepted) have one more molar tooth on each side of each jaw than does man, but the forms of the eastern continent are like man in that respect, as they are in having nails rather than claws on at least some of the fingers and toes. Many of the new world species have prehensile tails, but this never occurs in the others, the tail exhibiting a tendency to be reduced, at last disappearing in the man-like apes. ”

“ THIS monkey, (fig. 211.) though small, is a beautiful animal. Its name seems to indicate that it is a native of Siam, and other eastern provinces of Asia; but though we cannot positively assert this, it is, however, certain that it belongs to the Old Continent, and is not found any where in the New, because it has pouches on each side of its cheeks, and callosities on its posteriors, which characters neither belong to the sagoins nor sapajous, [226] which are the only animals of the New World that can be compared to the monkeys. ”

“ The monkey appreciation of degrees in human development is as alert and vigilant as the limits which human instinct sets between themselves and the latest prodigy of infant humanity.
255 THE LARGER MONKEYS. Though most of the best specimens of monkey beauty belong to the New World, the richness and variety of the colouring of one or two of the African species is not surpassed by that of any American species. Yet the ornamental value of their skins is little known, even among those professionally engaged in the fur trade. ”

“ Thus the fossil monkeys of South America have the nostrils wide apart like all the existing simiæ of the new world, and fossil monkeys with approximated nostrils, the characteristic mark of all the old world quadrumana, are exclusively found in Asia and in Europe, where now a small species of monkey is confined to the Rock of Gibraltar, but where, in the Upper Miocene times, large long-armed apes, equalling man in stature, lived in the oak forests of France. ”

“ On the ground their gait is extremely ungainly, uncertain, and tottering, particularly in those species which have a prehensile tail, but even their climbing does not come at all near that of the Old-World monkeys. For increase of the number of organs of locomotion does not necessarily result in increased power, still less in greater variety of movement; on the contrary, it often means one-sidedness, and it certainly does so in the case of the New-World monkeys. ”

“ 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 {24}house, like the Capuchins and spider monkeys. ”

“ If this fundamental proposition be recognised, it will be admitted that the doctrine of special descent upheld [143] by Haeckel, and set forth in Darwin's Descent of Man, is still valid to-day. In the genealogical tree, man's place is quite close to the anthropoid apes; these again have as their nearest relatives the lower Old World monkeys, and their progenitors must be sought among the less differentiated Platyrrhine monkeys, whose most important characters have been handed on to the present day New World monkeys. ”

“ At the most favourable opportunity he seizes the reptile just below the head with a firm grasp, then springs to a tree, if available, or to any hard substance near at hand, on which he rubs the snake's head with all his strength until life is extinct; at intervals smelling the fresh blood as it oozes from the wounds of his victim. When success has crowned his labour, the monkey capers about his prostrate enemy, as if in triumph at the victory he has won; developing, as the Natives say, in this, a striking resemblance to man. ”

“ It is the least attractive in appearance of its western brethren, and is the only one of the monkey tribe which the natives are unable to tame. Though often caught, they do not survive many weeks in captivity. It lives on fruits and nuts, and is hunted for the sake of its flesh, which, though rather dry, is much esteemed. The natives entrap this monkey in a curious fashion. They take a large nut, and scraping out the interior, leave only a small mouth, and, filling it with sugar, leave it near the trees inhabited by the mycetes. ”

“ Birds of prey and snakes are their great enemies. [Pg 392]
"There are eight species of monkeys, but they are not all found in every district. They live in troops, but when old they live generally by themselves or in pairs.
"Of all the mammalian animals inhabiting the forest the monkey tribe is the most numerous; but the poor monkey is surrounded by enemies, the greatest being man, who sets traps everywhere to catch him. Then he is continually hunted by the negroes with guns or arrows. ”

“ The monkey can do so many things at once that no juggler can equal it. It will hold fruit in one hand, pick more with one foot, place food to the mouth with another hand, and walk and swing from branch to branch with the other foot and tail, all simultaneously. These monkeys have no visible thumb, though dissection shows that they have a rudimentary one; but the limbs are so flexible that they can put one arm round behind their heads over on to the opposite shoulder, and brush the fur on their upper arm. ”

“ Unlike the grazing deer and the deer-eating panther, the frugivorous monkeys of the tropics are the direct competitors of the intolerant lord of creation. The Chinese macaques, the Moor monkey, the West-African baboons, have to eke out a living by pillage. The Gibraltar monkey has hardly any other resources. Nor has nature been very generous in the physical equipment of the species. Most monkeys lack the sharp teeth that enable the tiger to defy the avenger of his misdeeds. Without exception they all lack the keen scent that helps the deer to elude its pursuers. ”

“ When a spider-monkey is shot as it sits in a tree, it always coils its tail round a branch at once. And even after it dies, the body will often hang for several days suspended by the tail alone.
These monkeys spend almost the whole of their lives in the trees, feeding upon fruit and leaves, and only coming down to the ground when they want to drink. As a general rule they are dreadfully lazy creatures, and will sit on a bough for hours together without moving a limb. ”

“ The little monkey, the frightened, hopeless agony of death stamped on its tiny, grotesque features, dabbles aimlessly with little twigs and leaves, stuffing them at the wound; sometimes it feebly tries to get back among the branches that make his world, and, as you approach, there is never any savage, snarling stand where he meets extinction with the cornered heroism that seems for the moment to balance the scene. Instead, he pleads with failing gestures of forlorn propitiation, and with hoarse, cooing little noises, for the respite that would be far less merciful than the coup de gráce. ”

“ The monkeys resent intrusion of their territories by anything that looks like another monkey, such as a man. When approached they start barking. The usual terrier-like bark of great excitement may change to a metallic chatter repeated with great frequency. When males, and sometimes adult females are approached closely they growl in a strikingly vicious manner. Typically they come to the terminal ends of branches, often within 40 to 50 feet of the observer, and vigorously shake these branches. Both hands and feet may be used while the animal hangs by its tail. ”

“ On the other hand the American monkeys do little damage to man, for the vast forests which form their home (they are found in the warm countries of Mexico, Central and South America, and never in a very high altitude) provide for them so fully that they have no need of man’s help. The natives depend very much on monkey meat as a food and hunt them with bow and arrows, while travelers are often obliged to subsist upon monkey roasts for weeks together and do not find them very bad fare. ”

“ This will consist in queer little hurried runs over the globe, to see ten thousand things in the hope of thus filling their minds.
[1] Even in a wild state, the monkey is restless and does not live in lairs.
Their minds will be full enough. Their intelligence will be active and keen. It will have a constant tendency however to outstrip their wisdom. Their intelligence will enable them to build great industrial systems before they have the wisdom and goodness to run them aright. They will form greater political empires than they will have strength to guide. ”

“ The scarlet-faced monkey lives in forests, which are inundated during great part of the year, and is never known to descend to the ground; the shortness of its tail is therefore no sign of terrestrial habits, as it is in the Macaques and Baboons of the Old World. ”

“ Their gentleness and good-nature—apart from the fact that these are not found in all the species, do not in the least make up for their general lack of enterprise, boldness, cheerfulness, liveliness, and decision, circumspection and ingenuity—qualities which place the Old-World monkeys so high—while their everlasting whining and complaining counterbalance, in our eyes, all the qualities which might attract us to them. ”

“ A troop of monkeys travelling through the forest and feeding as they move, is also worth watching. Their presence is plainly indicated, even when some distance off, by the crashing noise made as they leap from tree to tree. Having reached the extremity of one branch, the monkey, with a swing and a flying leap, conveys himself to another, not alighting as a rule on a bough of any size, but generally coming down on all fours amongst the small twigs, a bunch of which is immediately embraced. ”

“ Are monkeys among the number of the most widely-distributed animals? No. The monkey-type is found neither in very cold countries nor in the greater part of the temperate regions, but only in the warmest parts of the globe. Besides, a great part of Oceanica contains not a single monkey.
If, now, we no longer consider the type, the entire group of monkeys, but only the species which approaches nearest to us, we see it occupying an area more and more limited. America has not a single species of monkey in common with Africa and Asia. ”

“ The same monkey, though tamed, would answer the cries of the wild ones of its species when it heard them in the woods, but was afraid of them when it saw them. All travelers testify to the intelligence of monkeys in a wild state, and have much to say of the trouble they have in guarding against their devices. It is not considered safe to attack their troops, for they will defend themselves in concert and with energy, and in apparent security, from the tree-tops, where they are afraid of nothing but a gun. ”

“ Monkeys love by nature to imitate what they see, and have been known to smoke a pipe, and to pretend to read a book that they have seen other people reading. But sometimes they can do a great deal more than this, and show that they can calculate and reason better than many men. A large Abyssinian monkey was one day being taken round Khartoum by its master, and made to perform all sorts of tricks for the amusement of the bystanders. ”

“ A monkey has perhaps been seen overhead springing from bough to bough, or sitting nibbling the fruit of some forest tree, or it may be an edible bird with flesh as tough as its plumage is gorgeous, that watches us till the gun booms out and the creature is brought down. For a moment it struggles in the river, then with a sudden splash, a man is swimming with powerful strokes towards the prey which he a moment later lands in the canoe, while the rest look approvingly on at their prospective meal. ”

“ We had heard of the implacable disposition which not only the mandrills, but other baboon-monkeys exhibit when they have been assailed by an enemy; we had heard that their resentment once kindled, cannot be again allayed until the object of it either becomes their victim, or else escapes altogether beyond their reach. With the monkey tribe it is not as with lions, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, or other dangerous beasts that maybe encountered in the forests of Africa. ”