triangular Brazil nuts (Bertholletia Excelsa), and
break the hard pod which contains them with a stone, laying it on the
bough of a tree, or some other stone. They sometimes get their tail
between the two, of course the blow falls upon the tail, and the monkey
bounds away, howling in the most frightful manner.
The prettiest of all monkeys is the Marmozet; the Ouistiti of Buffon;
the Simia Jacchus of Linnaeus. It is extremely sensitive to cold;
nevertheless, if plentifully supplied with wool, cotton, and other warm
materials, will live for years in this climate. Dr. Neill of Edinburgh,
that most excellent protector and lover of animals, brought one from
Bahia, which he found great difficulty in training. It even resisted
those who fed it, not allowing them to touch it, putting on an angry,
suspicious look, and being roused by even the slightest whisper. During
the voyage it ate corn and fruit, and when these became scarce, took to
cockroaches; of which it cleared the vessel. It would dispatch twenty
large, besides smaller ones, three or four times in each day, nipping
off the head of the former, and rejecting the viscera, legs, and hard
wing cases. Besides these, it fed on milk, sugar, raisins, and
bread-crumbs. It afterwards made friends with a cat, and slept and eat
with this animal, but it never entirely lost its distrustful feelings.
Lieutenant Edwards, in his voyage up the Amazon, mentions a domestic
white monkey, which had contrived to get to the top of a house, and no
persuasions or threats could get him down again. He ran over the roof,
displaced the tiles, peeped into the chambers below (for there are no
ceilings in that country), and when called, put his thumb up to his
nose. He was shot at with corn, but having found a rag, he held it up
before him, and so tried to evade the shot; every now and then peeping
over the top. At last he was left to himself; and when no endeavours
were made to get him down, he came of his own accord. Captain Brown
mentions a monkey, who, when he was troublesome in the cabin of a ship,
was fired at with gunpowder and currant jelly; and in order to defend
himself, used to pick up the favorite monkey, and hold him between the
pistol and himself when it was presented.
A race of animals exists in Madagascar, and some of the Eastern islands,
to which the name of Maki has been given, and which, although differing
in the formation of the skull and teeth, must, from having four hands,
b
|