Monkey wrench

“ The little gray monkey, with its venerable looking black face fringed with a sunburst of white hair, would be tied to an old umbrella of the Sairey Gamp pattern, and would sit upon it as the small boy carried it along the trails on his shoulder, like a musket. Sometimes when the sun was strong the umbrella would be raised to shield the monkey's eyes, which could not stand the fierce glare incident to a long march upon sun-baked trails. ”

“ Another way of capturing small monkeys is by means of a sweetened rag in a bottle. The bottle is covered with green rattan and tied to a tree. The monkey puts his hand through the neck and grabs the rag. He cannot pull his hand out while it is doubled up with the rag in it, and he hasn't sense enough to let go. There he sticks, fighting with the bottle, until the hunter comes along and, by pressing the nerves in his elbow, forces him to open his hand and leave the rag for the next monkey. ”

“ I do not know whether Garner claims too much or too little for his monkeys; I have never had opportunity to test the matter in the jungle, and the caged monkeys with which I have occasionally experimented are too debased of habit or too imbecile in their affections to interest one who has long dealt with clean wild brutes. At times, however, when I have watched a monkey with an organ-grinder, I have noticed that the unhappy little beast displays a lively interest in the chitter of chimney-swifts—a lingo which to my dull ears sounds remarkably like monkey-talk. ”

“ But though we have not seen him, we know he has a hand or a paw as heavy as lead; for when it pleases him to lay it upon anyone, down he goes as if the blacksmith's hammer had hit him. There is no end of his monkey tricks. If the linen is hung out to dry, he cuts the line. If he wants a cup of ale, he leaves the tap running. If the fowls are shut up, he lets them loose. He puts the pig into the garden, rides upon the cows, and turns the horses into the hay yard; and several times he nearly burned the house down, by leaving a candle alight among the fagots. ”

“ This caudal expedient is sometimes found with the American show-monkey, when a bit of gingerbread is put by the roguish boys at an inconvenient distance; but, as, in such instance, the tail is prehensile, is in fact the monkey's fifth hand, such feat is no great shakes after all, but is quite in keeping with what the organ is cut out for. It is, at most, but little more than that instinct which structural or functional capacity might evolve. But, in Nasua's case, it is animal contrivance, pure and simple. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The monkey becomes as fond of its human friends as it is of those of its own race. Often it does not like certain people, and has its own way of showing this, but there are others whom it seems to love warmly. This faculty does not [279] belong only to monkeys, but may be seen in dogs and other animals. But it is often strongly shown by the monkey.
Darwin tells of a keeper in the London Zoölogical Garden, who one day was attacked by a savage baboon. In the cage was a little American monkey, a great friend of the keeper, but very much afraid of the great baboon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Capuchin monkeys remain good-tempered always, as do many of the smaller species. But as a rule monkey-temper fails after the animals have been for four or five years in the Gardens, and they become uncertain and often unsafe. An ounce of fact is worth a pound of theory. A large monkey escaped in the evening when it was being transferred to another cage. ”

“ And during the next two days this seemed to be more and more the case, for the soldiers kept on ushering in common-looking country-people, till at one time the yard was nearly full of gaping spectators, for whose delectation the monkey would be sent bounding about its cage, flying up the bars in front to avoid the shaft of some spear thrust in brutally, but, in spite of rapid strokes, rarely striking it. For the active little creature made prodigious leaps, or swung itself from side to side by its long, thin, muscular arms ”

“ The monkeys are very numerous in the sacred cities, and especially in Benares and Pooree. Within a few miles of the temple of Juggernaut there are many hundreds, if not thousands. They are so tame that they will come down from the trees and eat rice from the hands of the pilgrims. When the pilgrim presents his hand with the rice in it, the monkey seizes it with his left paw, and he will never let go his grip until he has taken every grain. Very few persons are injured by monkeys, but they will sometimes seize a basket, if there be fruit in it, when carried by a woman or child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some species of monkeys are more delicate food than others, and there are some kinds that white monkey-eaters will not touch.
As for the Indians, it seems with them to be “all fish,” etcetera; and they devour all kinds indifferently, whether they be “howlers,” or “ateles,” or “capuchins,” or “ouistitis,” or “sajous,” or “sakis,” or whatever sort. In fact, among many Indian tribes, monkey stands in the same place that mutton does in England; and they consider it their staple article of flesh-meat. Indeed, in these parts, no other animal is so common as the monkey ”

“ Of all animals, monkeys possess the greatest development of the facial muscles. This is owing principally to the circumstance that they eat everything, being half carnivorous, half herbivorous, and make use of the mouth as an organ for seizing the prey, and assisting the hands in tearing, skinning, and continually preparing the food.
The countenance of the monkey is of unexampled mobility; in a few minutes one sees all expressions pass over it, from desire to contempt, from cunning to innocence, from attention to carelessness, from love to rage, from aggression to fear, from joy to sadness. ”

“ Of course, there are no trails, and the only way was to drag them out of the forest with ropes.
One of the monoliths represents a woman with a small child in one arm and a club in the other hand raised in an attitude of defense; on one is carved a woman meshing a muchila, and on another a man is holding a fish. There is the hewn figure of a large monkey crouching over a smaller one, and some distance away stands an owl holding a snake in its beak. A flat slab in a recumbent position bears the engraved figure of a woman and possibly served as the covering of a coffin or a grave. ”

“ They pass through the forest at a height of a hundred feet or more, as rapidly as a deer will travel along the ground beneath them. Other monkeys of various kinds are more abundant and usually less shy; and in places where fire-arms are not much used they will approach the houses and gambol in the trees undisturbed by the approach of man. The most remarkable of the tailed monkeys of the East is [p. 118] the proboscis monkey of Borneo, whose long fleshy nose gives it an aspect very different from that of most of its allies. ”

“ Notwithstanding the thorny stem, which even man cannot scale without a contrivance; notwithstanding the apparently inaccessible clusters—inaccessible from their great height—there is a species of monkey that manages now and then to get a meal of them. How do these monkeys manage it? Not by climbing the stem, for the thorns are too sharp even for them. How then? Do the nuts fall to the ground and allow the monkeys to gather them? No. This is not the case. How then? We shall see!
Guapo and Leon had returned to the camp, taking with them the pupunha fruit and the firewood. ”

“ The monkey spring trap51 is on the style of the bamboo spear trap described above but is much smaller, being set on the branch of a tree without any attempt at concealment. The poor, simple-minded monkey, on catching sight of the bait, walks up innocently, seizes it, and is wounded by the spear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This cowardly poltroon, the ship’s cook, was a brutal fellow. He owned several monkeys and in trying to make them perform tricks he murdered them. His last monkey was rescued from drowning. One day this savage cook was angry with his little jacko because he did not come to him when called. He struck the frightened monkey over the head with a potato masher and cast him overboard. The captain, standing on the poop deck, saw the monkey was still alive and threw the coil of the spanker sheet to him. ”

“ With regard to the monkeys, they would be extremely glad to get any of the weaver-birds’ eggs, and still more, perhaps, the birds themselves, but the nest—to give the whole collective structure this name—is built in such a way as to render this difficult. It hangs in the air, and slants outwards as it descends, so that a small monkey getting on the top of it might find it difficult to avoid slipping down, whereas the massiveness of the structure is such as to deter even the baboons from trying to pull it to pieces. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mr Werne was very desirous to catch a monkey alive, but was unsuccessful, and Mohammed Ehle refused to sell a tame one which he owned, and which usually sat upon his hut. Mr Werne thinks them a variety of the Chimpanzee. They fight amongst themselves with sticks, and defend themselves fiercely with stones against the attacks of men. ”

“ The monkey being a sacred animal, is never molested by the natives, and the damage he does in a night to a crop of wheat or barley is astonishing. Peafowl too are very destructive, and what with these and the ravages of pig, deer, hares, and other plunderers, the poor ryot has to watch many a weary night, to secure any return from his fields. ”

“ Though I never saw the big-bellied monkey mentioned by Spruce, [173] I noticed a large number of spider-monkeys, with tails so prehensile that they serve as additional hands to convey fruit to their mouths. The supply of monkey flesh depends in the first instance on what provender there may be in the neighbourhood for those animals. Monkeys are wanderers, and when they have cleared one part of the forest of fruit and nuts, they migrate to another. The migration of game is a serious matter for the Indian, for all animals here are subject to periodical movements as noted in the previous chapter. ”

“ As soon as he has shot the monkey, he follows it through the forest, till, the poison beginning to take effect, it falls from the tree. He takes care to be close under the bough to catch it in his arms, and immediately puts a pinch of salt into its mouth. In a short time the little creature revives; and in most instances not appearing to be much the worse for the poison, it is led away captive. A young one thus entrapped speedily becomes tame, and is much prized, as an interesting pet, by the white inhabitants. ”