THE LARGER MONKEYS.
Thoughmost 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. In the catalogues of the great sales at Sir Charles Lampson’s in College Street, there is always a column headed “various,” to which the visitor, tired with the enumeration of the regular commercial skins by the hundred thousand, always turns with a sense of curiosity. Most of these are “dressed” skins, of exceptional rarity and beauty, sold separately, and not in “lots,” like the pelts of musquash, beaver, and bear, and exhibited in a room by themselves instead of by sample. At the last of these great sales which the writer attended, the collection in the room set apart for this purpose was exceptionally interesting, and the buyer of one of the great wholesale fur dealers marked several of the lots for purchase. A row of fourteen skins of the northern(Manchurian) tiger, with long, deep fur and magnificent markings of rich tawny and white, was perhaps the most striking feature in the room. But dozens of leopard and lynx hides, Chinese coats of Thibetan lamb, fleece inwards, ocelot, tiger-cat, and even pythons’ skins, made up a richly-coloured and curious collection. Turning over a pile of small unnamed skins lying on a trestle table, the buyer discovered a set of monkey hides of a species quite unknown to him. The prevailing colour was a beautiful iron-grey, and in the centre of each skin was an oval scutcheon of the richest chestnut brown. These were at once marked for purchase, and next day the writer identified the species to which the skins belong by a visit to the Zoo. They were those of the Diana monkey of West Africa, a creature which, though of a thorough monkey type, has almost the colouring of some of the most ornamental wild ducks. Its face is black, with a white crescent on the forehead, and a long white beard, and a white throat and shoulders. The rest of the body and fore-legs is mainly of a tint of iron-grey, speckled all over with a “pepper and salt” arrangement of dots. In the centre of the back is the deep chestnut patch which has such a curious effect in the dressed skin, and the lower parts are a brilliant pale yellow. The Diana monkey now in the Gardens is an extremely friendly creature, and spends much time in stroking and arranging its beautiful fur. One kept in confinement is said to have always drawn its beard aside with the hand to prevent itsbeing soiled when drinking. The “moustache” monkey, though not so brightly coloured as the Diana, is in many respects a most beautiful creature. It is a medium-sized monkey, five or six times larger than the tiny squirrel monkey of Guiana, but the scheme and method of its colouring is much the same, with the substitution of “powder blue” for gamboge. In most of the “self-coloured” monkeys the whole body seems permeated with some particular colouring matter, black, blue, yellow, or green, as the case may be, just as human beings who have been dosed with nitrate of silver acquire a violet tinge. The colour is brightest in the skin, especially on the face and hands, but extends all over the body, shows between the roots of the soft fur, and seems to climb the hair and colour the “stalk,” just as the green liquid in which a white carnation is placed ascends into the flower and tinges it with an unnatural dye. In the “moustache” monkey the face and lips are a beautiful “powder” blue, the eyes bluish smoke-colour, the inside of the ears as blue as a hyacinth, and the skin which shows between the soft hair on the arms, legs, and chest a paler turquoise shade, which makes the greyish fur of the lower parts a chinchilla colour. The fur on the back is of yellow and black mixed, shading into the grey of the abdomen by gradual changes.
The inmates of the main cages in the centre of the house, with the exception of the Capuchins, are nearly all Old World species, and exhibit much that isstrange and interesting, and a good deal that is repulsive in monkey characteristics. Though the cages seemed first to contain a chance medley of all sorts, the monkeys are really distributed with due regard to affinities of continent and species; and a “synoptic” view of the various tribes behind the bars shows better than any book the manner in which certain monkey types, like particular races of mankind, have either advanced or receded over great tracts of continent.
Monkeys pelting Coolies with Fir-Cones.From aJapanese Drawing.
Monkeys pelting Coolies with Fir-Cones.From aJapanese Drawing.
Monkeys pelting Coolies with Fir-Cones.From aJapanese Drawing.
The sole European monkey has retreated literally to the last stone of the continent, and only lives on the great cliff of the Rock of Gibraltar, in the vertical face of which it still maintains itself, midway between sea and sky. On the cliffs of the opposite coast they are more plentiful, and its name of “Barbary Ape” is more appropriate than any European title. That at the Zoo is a female, a large, heavy, round-backed monkey, with olive-tinted fur, a dull, morose face, and a by no means pleasant temper. Like most large monkeys, it is a far heavier, stronger, and more active creature than it appears to be when sitting bunched up on the floor. The big monkeys, not only the baboons, but creatures like the large macaques and the Chinese and Japanese monkeys, have the power of leaping suddenly in almost any direction without any previous contraction of the limbs or body. They may be sitting in the most listless and apparently dejected attitude, and yet in a moment fling themselves upon an enemy, inflict afrightful bite, and be away before he has time for defence or retaliation. The large Chinese Tcheli monkey outside the house will usually give an example of this form of monkey tactics. It is a long-legged, short-bodied, powerful creature, extremely heavy and contemplative in manner, and, it must be owned, an ugly, unpleasant-looking brute, though it is both loyal and attached to its keeper. If a visitor pretends to strike the keeper, or use any rough gesture to him, the monkey catches up and flings whatever missile happens to be at hand, straight at the offender’s head, following the shot itself with a furious and sudden leap, which, if not stopped by the bars, would bring the animal full upon the head and shoulders of the person attacked. If nothing else is available, the monkey flings a handful of sawdust, with violence and precision, thus preparing the way for the onset by partly blinding the enemy. Both the sudden leap and the missile are characteristic of monkey attack, though the last is the special weapon of the Chinese and Japanese apes. In the pine forests of their native country they fling the large and heavy pine-cones—not light fir-cones, but solid and substantial missiles—at the heads of intruders; and the pelting of coolies by the apes is a not unfrequent subject of Chinese and Japanese paintings. The Japanese ape occupies an outside cage at the opposite end of the house to that inhabited by the Tcheli monkey, which it much resembles.
In the large cages in the centre of the MonkeyHouse the animals are mainly grouped geographically. African monkeys, such as the velvet, malbrook, grivet, and green monkey, are in one compartment, Capuchins and other South American monkeys in a second, Indian monkeys in a third. One of the most friendly and amusing is a little “bonnet-monkey,” not much bigger than a rat. Its face is exactly like that of an old Chinaman, with the slanting eyes, flat, short nose, wrinkled and surprised cast of expression, long upper lip, and hair growing backwards with a parting. Another odd little monkey is the little Java pig-tail, “Bob.” He is a most friendly little fellow, running up and catching hold of the keeper’s arm the moment he comes near the cage, or putting its arms round his neck if he leans with his back against the wires. Bob keeps the whole cage-full in good spirits with his tricks. He is not the least afraid of any visitor, catching hold of a human hand or arm in the most familiar way, though his attention may be mainly engaged in what is going on among the monkeys.
Though so many species of monkeys are now known, there is always the chance of the discovery of some unknown and monstrous ape, because these are always animals living in the region of the great forests near the equator. Great forests are now well understood to be the most inaccessible portions of the earth. It is no paradox to say, that the range of life in the ocean abyss, where the explorer gropes for creatures which have invaded regions lying belowmiles of superincumbent ocean in eternal darkness and everlasting cold, may be better known in fifty years than the list of inhabitants of the Central African forest, with its horrible incubus of twilight gloom, and the matted tangle of encroaching vegetation, which rises solid and unbroken from the rotten soil beneath to the lowering and electric clouds and vapours that brood upon its upper surface. This forbidding region is probably the home of monkeys large and small, of strange forms and unknown habits, which will from time to time find their way to the Zoo, and astonish the visitors to the Monkey House as much as the first arrival of the ourang-outang and the gorilla. Even from the well-known Indian hills a monkey arrived lately which was quite new to the experience of connoisseurs; and it was at first pronounced to be a hybrid between a rhesus and a macaque. It is a large, solemn monkey, with thick “vandyke-brown” fur, and round, tranquil, brown eyes, as deliberate in its movements as the larger apes. Further information identified this monkey as a true macaque, from the little Himalayan State of Sikkim. The doubts as to its identity can hardly be matter for surprise, for the question of the possession of the State of Sikkim itself was only recently settled between the Indian and the Chinese Empires after a small frontier war, and protracted negotiations.
So much has been written on the questions of monkey temper and monkey talk, that the conclusions of one who has for twelve years watched them daily,fed them in health and disease, and has besides that form of insight into animal character which seems innate in some persons to a very high and exceptional degree, deserve some attention. Eustace Jungbluth, a German of Bremen, is the chief keeper of the Monkey Palace—tall, handsome, fair, with the figure of an athlete, and the sound sense of one who prefers to observe and think, than to think and make observation square with theory. He also speaks English, French, and Dutch well, and expresses himself with great clearness. So far as the present writer has been able to gather his views in conversation, he absolutely disbelieves in any form of universal monkey speech, though each species has its own special sounds of fear or pleasure, which are naturally interpreted aright by others of the same kind. 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. It dodged the net, and was outside and had disappeared almost in a moment. It could not be found, and spent the night out. Next morning it was discovered in a tree, and shot before the Gardens opened. It had been sent to the Zoo because it was “troublesome,” and it was not considered safe to leave it at large even for a morning.