gentle and easily tamed. There are at least fourteen distinct species belonging to this family.

14. The marmoset is but little larger than a squirrel, and has a head very much like a fox. It is covered with long, silken hair, and has a bushy tail of moderate length. This tail is not prehensile. Its food is insects and fruits. Humboldt's tame marmoset used to sit by him and inspect his drawings. Pictures of spiders and flies he tried to catch in his paws, but he turned from the picture of a wasp in great terror.

CHAPTER XL.

LONG-TAILED DWELLERS OF THE TREE-TOPS.

1. AMONG the monkeys of the Old World there are some that have long tails and melancholy, solemn-looking countenances. Their tails are of no special use to them in holding or catching the branches of trees. When young they are easily tamed; but after they have grown old they are cross and often vicious. A curious species is the proboscis-monkey, remarkable on account of its long nose, which in the male turns down and in the female turns up. This nose gives them a ludicrous expression. They are found in great numbers in the forests of Borneo, and the natives believe them to be men who have run to the woods to avoid paying tribute.

2. The bonnet-monkey is frequently brought to Europe for exhibition. It is about the size of a large cat, of greenish color, with a long tail. In Bengal it does great injury to fields and gardens. The natives forbid any one to kill it. When young the bonnet-monkey is amusing in confinement, performing all sorts of antics with a look of

solemn gravity. When two or three are kept together, they are constantly hugging and fondling each other; and,

when a monkey of this kind has no companion of its own species, it will pet a kitten and almost choke it with its fond attention.

3. The common baboon is an inhabitant of the hottest part of Africa, and grows to three and even four feet high. He is more ferocious than others of the monkey tribe, and is not so often tamed. His general color is

grayish-brown. The face is of a tawny flesh-color, with a tuft of hair on each side and surmounted by a large bunch, giving the animal a ludicrous appearance. Baboons abound in Siam, where they frequently sally forth in multitudes to attack the

villages when the peasants are busy in the rice-harvest, and plunder their habitations of whatever provisions they can lay their paws on. Fruit, corn, and roots are their usual food, though they will also eat flesh.

4. "The army of Alexanderthe Great marched in complete battle array into a country in

The Baboon.

habited by great numbers of baboons and encamped there for the night. The next morning, when the army was about to proceed on its march, the soldiers saw at some distance an enormous number of baboons drawn up in rank and file like a small army with such regularity, that the Macedonians, who could have no idea of such a manœuvre, imagined at first that it was the enemy drawn up to receive them."

5. The hoonuman, or entellus monkey, is venerated by the Hindoos, who believe that if any person kills one he will die within a year. This monkey is about three feet high, has a yellowish body, and black face and hands. The hair above the eyebrows forms an odd projection,

and there is a tuft of beard on the chin. "These monkeys, being protected from injury by the superstition of the Hindoos, become a perfect nuisance to those who

have no veneration for them. They take their abode in groves or trees which are planted about villages, and sometimes are so numerous as to outnumber the human inhabitants of the place.

6. "Sir J. Forbes says that at Dhuboy the roofs of the houses seemed entirely appropriated to the monkeys, and gives a humorous account of having been obliged to take shelter in a veranda because these animals pelted him with tiles and mortar from an opposite house. They are mischievous and destructive, and will strip a corn-field of moderate size in a few hours. They frequently, however, destroy poisonous snakes. They seize them by the neck when asleep, and, running to the nearest stone, grind the head by a strong friction on the surface, frequently

looking at it and grinning. When convinced that the venomous fangs are destroyed, they toss the reptile to their young ones to play with, and seem to rejoice in the destruction of their common enemy."

7. The gibbons, or long-armed apes, are natives of Southern Asia and the adjacent islands. Mr. Wallace says: "They are generally of small size and of a gentle disposition, but possessing the most wonderful agility. In these creatures the arms are as long as the body and legs together, and are so powerful that a gibbon will hang for hours suspended from a branch, or will swing to-andfro, and then throw itself a great distance through the air. The arms, in fact, completely take the place of legs in traveling.

8. "Instead of jumping from bough to bough, and running on the branches, like other apes and monkeys, the gibbons move along while suspended in the air, stretching their arms from bough to bough, and thus going hand over hand, as a very active sailor will climb along a rope. The strength of the arms is, however, so prodigious, and their hold so sure, that they often loose one hand before they have caught a bough with the other, thus seeming almost to fly through the air by a series of swinging leaps; and they travel among the net-work of interlacing boughs, a hundred feet above the earth, with as much ease and certainty as we walk or run upon level ground, and with even greater speed.

9. "These little animals scarcely ever come down to the ground of their own accord; but, when obliged to do so, they run along almost erect, with their long arms swinging round and round, as if trying to find some tree or other object to climb upon. They are the only apes who naturally walk without using their hands as well as their feet; but this does not make them move like men,