The Animal World, A Book of Natural History Part 2

Our second example of the guenons is the diana monkey, which you may at once recognize by its long, pointed, snow-white beard. It seems to be very proud of this beard, and while drinking holds it carefully back with one hand, in order to prevent it from getting wet.

Why is it called the "diana" monkey? Because of the curious white mark upon its forehead, which is shaped like the crescent which the ancients used to think was borne by the G.o.ddess Diana. It is a very handsome animal, for its back is rich chestnut brown in color, and the lower part of its body is orange yellow, while between the two is a band of pure white. Its face and tail and hands and feet are black. It is a very gentle animal, and is easily tamed.

THE MANGABEYS

These are very odd-looking monkeys, for they all have white eyelids, which are very conspicuous in their sooty-black faces. Indeed, they always give one a kind of idea that they must spend their whole lives in sweeping chimneys.

They are among the most interesting of all monkeys to watch, for they are not only so active and full of life that they scarcely seem able to keep still, but they are always twisting their bodies about into all sorts of strange att.i.tudes. When in captivity they soon find out that visitors are amused by their antics, and are always ready to go through their performances in order to obtain a nut or a piece of cake.

Then they have an odd way, when they are walking about their cages, of lifting their upper lips and showing their teeth, so that they look just as if they were grinning at you. And instead of carrying their tails behind them, as monkeys generally do, or holding them straight up in the air, they throw them forward over the back, so that the tip comes just above the head.

Only four kinds of mangabey are known, and they are all found in Western Africa.

MACAQUES

There is one more family of monkeys found in the Old World which we must mention, and that consists of the animals known as macaques. They are natives of Asia, with one exception, and that is the famous magot, the only monkey which lives wild in any part of Europe. It inhabits the Rock of Gibraltar, and though it is not nearly as common as it used to be, there is still a small band of these animals with which n.o.body is allowed to interfere. They move about the Rock a good deal. When the weather is warm and sunny, they prefer the side that faces the Mediterranean, but as soon as a cold easterly wind springs up they all travel round to the western side, which is much more sheltered. They always keep to the steepest parts of the cliff, and it is not easy to get near enough to watch them. Generally the only way to see them at all is by means of a telescope.

The magot is sometimes known as the Barbary ape, although of course it is not really an ape at all. But it is very common in Barbary, and two or three times, when the little band of monkeys on the Rock seemed in danger of dying out, a few specimens have been brought over from Africa just to make up the number.

The only other member of this family that we can mention is the crab-eating macaque, which is found in Siam and Burma. It owes its name to its fondness for crabs, spending most of its time on the banks of salt-water creeks in order to search for them. But perhaps the strangest thing about it is that it is a splendid swimmer, and an equally good diver, for it has been known to jump overboard and to swim more than fifty yards under water, in its attempts to avoid recapture.

CHAPTER III

THE AMERICAN MONKEYS AND THE LEMURS

A great many very curious monkeys live in America; and in several ways they are very different from those of Africa and Asia.

Most of the Old World monkeys, for example, possess large cheek-pouches, in which, after eating a meal, they can carry away nearly enough food for another. No doubt you have often seen a monkey with its cheeks perfectly stuffed out with nuts. But in the American monkeys these pouches are never found.

Then no American monkey has those bare patches on its hind quarters, which are present in all the monkeys of the Old World, with the exception of the great apes, and which are often so brightly colored.

And, more curious still, no American monkey has a proper thumb. The fingers are generally very long and strong; but the thumb is either wanting altogether, or else it is so small that it cannot be of the slightest use.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS OF MONKEYS.

1. Young Orang-utan "Dohong." 2. Barbary Ape.

3. j.a.panese Red-faced Monkey. 4. White-faced Sapajou.

5. Siamang Gibbon. 6. Chimpanzee "Polly."

_All lived in the New York Zoological Park._]

SPIDER-MONKEYS

Perhaps the most curious of all the American monkeys are the spider-monkeys, which look very much like big black spiders when one sees them gamboling among the branches of the trees. The reason is that their bodies are very slightly built, and their arms and legs are very long and slender, while the tail is often longer than the head and body together, and looks just like an extra limb. And indeed it is used as an extra limb, for it is prehensile; that is, it can be coiled round any small object so tightly as to obtain a very firm hold. A spider-monkey never likes to take a single step without first twisting the tip of its tail round a branch, so that this member really serves as a sort of fifth hand. Sometimes, too, the animal will feed itself with its tail instead of with its paws. And it can even hang from a bough for some little time by means of its tail alone, in order to pluck fruit which would otherwise be out of its reach.

Owing partly, no doubt, to constant use, the last few inches of this wonderful tail are quite bare underneath--without any hair at all. It is worth while to remember, just here, that while in many American monkeys the tail has this prehensile grasp, no monkey of the Old World is provided with this convenience.

When a spider-monkey finds itself upon level ground, where its tail, of course, is of no use to it, it always seems very uncomfortable. But it manages to keep its balance as it walks along by holding the tail over its back, and just turning it first to one side and then to the other, as the need of the moment may require. It uses it, in fact, very much as an acrobat uses his pole when walking upon the tight rope.

It is rather curious to find that while other monkeys are very fond of nibbling the tips of their own tails, often making them quite raw, spider-monkeys never do so. They evidently know too well how useful those members are to injure them by giving way to such a silly habit--which is even worse than biting one's nails.

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. But when they are playful, or excited, they swing themselves to and fro and dart from branch to branch, almost as actively as the gibbons.

HOWLERS

Very much like the spider-monkeys are the howlers, which are very common in the great forests of Central America. They owe their name to the horrible cries which they utter as they move about in the trees by night. You remember how the gibbons hold a kind of concert in the tree-tops every morning and every evening, as though to salute the rising and the setting sun. Well, the howlers behave in just the same way, except that their concert begins soon after dark and goes on all through the night. They have very powerful voices, and travelers who are not used to their noise say that it is quite impossible to sleep in the forest if there is a troop of howlers anywhere within two miles. And it is hard to believe that the outcry comes from the throats of monkeys at all. "You would suppose," says a famous traveler, "that half the wild beasts of the forest were collecting for the work of carnage. Now it is the tremendous roar of the jaguar, as he springs upon his prey; now it changes to his terrible and deep-toned growlings, as he is pressed on all sides by superior force; and now you hear his last dying groan beneath a mortal wound. One of them alone is capable of producing all these sounds; and if you advance cautiously, and get under the high and tufted trees where he is sitting, you may have a capital opportunity of witnessing his wonderful powders of producing these dreadful and discordant sounds."

If one monkey alone is capable of roaring as loudly as a jaguar, think what the noise must be when fifty or sixty howlers are all howling at the same time. No wonder travelers find it difficult to sleep in the forest.

Perhaps the best known of these monkeys is the red howler. Its color is reddish brown, with a broad band of golden yellow running along the spine, while its face is surrounded by bushy whiskers and beard.

THE OUAKARI

Another very curious American monkey is the red-faced ouakari. If you were to see it from a little distance you would most likely think that it was suffering from a bad attack of scarlet fever; for the face and upper part of the neck are bright red in color, as though they had been smeared with vermilion paint. And as its whiskers and beard are sandy yellow, it is a very odd-looking animal.

If a ouakari is unwell, strange to say, the bright color of its face begins to fade at once, and very soon after death it disappears altogether.

Ouakaris are generally caught in a very singular way. They are only found in a very small district on the southern bank of the Amazon River, and spend their whole lives in the topmost branches of the tallest trees, where it is quite impossible to follow them. And if they were shot with a gun, of course they would almost certainly be killed. So they are shot with a blowpipe instead. A slender arrow is dipped into a kind of poison called wourali, which has been diluted to about half its usual strength, and is then discharged at the animal from below. Only a very slight wound is caused, but the poison is still so strong that the ouakari soon faints, and falls from its perch in the branches. But the hunter, who is carefully watching, catches it in his arms as it falls, and puts a little salt into its mouth. This overcomes the effect of the poison, and very soon the little animal is as well as ever.

Ouakaris which are caught in this way, however, are generally very bad-tempered, and the gentle and playful little animals sometimes seen in zoos have been taken when very young. They are very delicate creatures and nearly always die after a few weeks of confinement.

THE COUXIA

If you were to see a couxia, or black saki, as it is often called, the first thing that you would say would most likely be, "What an extraordinary beard!" And your next remark would be, "Why, it looks as if it were wearing a wig!" For its projecting black beard is as big as that of the most heavily bearded man you ever saw, while on its head is a great ma.s.s of long black hair, neatly parted in the middle, and hanging down on either side, so that it looks just like a wig which has been rather clumsily made.

The couxia is extremely proud of its beard, and takes very great pains to prevent it from getting either dirty or wet. Do you remember how the diana monkey holds its beard with one hand while drinking, so as to keep it from touching the water? Well, the couxia is more careful still, for it will not put its lips to the water at all, but carries it to its mouth, a very little at a time, in the palm of its hand. But the odd thing is that it seems rather ashamed of thinking so much about its "personal appearance," and, if it knows that anybody is looking at it, will drink just like any other monkey, and pretend not to care at all about wetting its beard.

Like most of the sakis, the couxia is not at all a good-tempered animal, and is apt to give way to sudden fits of fury. So savagely will it bite when enraged, that it has been known to drive its teeth deeply into a thick board.

THE DOUROUCOULIS

Sometimes these odd little animals are called night-monkeys, because all day long they are fast asleep in a hollow tree, and soon after sunset they wake up, and all night long are prowling about the branches of the trees, searching for roosting birds, and for the other small creatures upon which they feed. They are very active, and will often strike at a moth or a beetle as it flies by, and catch it in their deft little paws.

And their eyes are very much like those of cats, so that they can see as well on a dark night as other monkeys can during the day.

The eyes, too, are very large. If you were to look at the skull of a douroucouli, you would notice that the eye-sockets almost meet in the middle, only a very narrow strip of bone dividing them. And the hair that surrounds them is set in a circle, just like the feathers that surround the eyes of an owl.

But perhaps the most curious fact about these animals is that sometimes they roar like jaguars, and sometimes they bark like dogs, and sometimes they mew like cats.