MONKEYS.

Simi?. Linn.

It may perhaps seem to require some apology that we have ventured so far to depart from the ordinary system of arrangement as to remove the Monkeys from the station which they have hitherto usually been permitted to occupy at the head of the class, and to transfer them to their present position. We will not attempt to conceal that in so doing we were chiefly actuated by the desire of placing at the commencement of our series the largest and most attractive of the animals of which it was composed; and those which, in a Menagerie like that which we have undertaken to illustrate, always constitute the most imposing feature. But while we[138] acknowledge the influence of this feeling to the fullest extent, we cannot refrain from expressing at the same time our firm conviction that the carnivorous quadrupeds possess in reality a better title to the place which we have assigned them, than the Monkeys which we have displaced to make room for them. The supposed transition from man, on which the received arrangement is founded, has little to do with the question; and it would surely require no great subtilty of argument to prove that the Carnivora are more highly typical of the great class, of which they form so important a part, than any other tribe whatever. But this is not the proper place for entering into so abstract a question; to which we have only referred en passant, for the sake of justifying ourselves upon broader principles for a deviation from established custom, which we should not have hesitated to adopt, in the present instance, on the narrow ground of expedience alone. Before, however, we take leave of it altogether, we cannot avoid asking, why, if the Monkeys are to take precedence of the Carnivora among Mammalia, the analogous tribe of Birds, the Pies and the Parrots, should not also rank above the ornithological representatives of the beasts of prey, the towering Eagle and the rapacious Vulture?

To return, however, to our Monkeys; to which, be it observed, we do not pretend to assign this as a definite position. They form by far the largest portion of the Quadrumana; all the other animals of that order being comprehended, or rather confounded, in a distinct family, under the name of Lemurs, from the rightful owners of which appellation many of them differ most essentially. In addition to the hands on the posterior as well as[139] anterior members, with long and flexible fingers and opposable thumbs, which constitute the primary characters of the order, the Monkey tribe in general is distinguished by the following peculiarities. Their incisor teeth are invariably four in each jaw, and their molars, like those of man, are flat and surmounted by blunted tubercles. The latter are five in number on each side of either jaw in all the Monkeys of the Old Continent, and in one very distinct tribe belonging to the New; but most of the American species are furnished with a sixth. Their canines vary considerably in size, from a trifling projection beyond the remaining teeth to a long and powerful tusk, almost equalling those of the most formidable Carnivora; and from this structure it necessarily follows that a vacant space is left between the incisors and the canines of the upper jaw, and between the canines and the molars of the lower, for the reception and lodgment of those organs when the mouth is closed. The nails of all their fingers, as well as those of the thumbs, are invariably flat and expanded.

In almost every other point they are subject to infinite variations of form and structure. The shape of the head, which, in one or two species, offers a close approximation to the human form, passes through numerous intermediate gradations, until it reaches a point at which it can only be compared with that of the hound. The body, which is in general slight and well made, is in some few instances remarkably short and thickset, and in others drawn out to a surprising degree of tenuity. Their limbs vary greatly in their proportions; but in most of them the anterior are longer than the posterior: in all they are admirably adapted to the purposes to which they[140] are applied, in climbing and leaping, by the slenderness of their form, the flexibility of their joints, and the muscular activity with which these qualities are so strikingly combined. But of all their organs there is perhaps none which exhibits so remarkable a discrepancy in every particular as the tail; which is entirely wanting in some, forms a mere tubercle in others, in a third group is short and tapering, in a fourth of moderate length and cylindrical, in a fifth extremely long but uniformly covered with hair; in others, again, of equal length, divested of hair beneath and near the tip, and capable of being twisted round the branch of a tree or any other similar substance in such a manner as to support the whole weight of the animal, even without the assistance of his hands.

In none of them, it may be observed, are the hands formed for swimming, or the nails constructed for digging the earth; and in none of them is the naked callous portion, which corresponds to the sole or the palm, capable of being applied, like the feet of man or of the bear, to the flat surfaces on which they may occasionally tread. Even in those which have the greatest propensity to assume an upright posture, the body is, under such circumstances, wholly supported by the outer margins of the posterior hands. The earth, in fact, is not their proper place of abode; they are essentially inhabitants of trees, and every part of their organization is admirably fitted for the mode of life to which they were destined by the hand of nature herself. Throughout the vast forests of Asia, Africa, and South America, and more especially in those portions of the three continents which are comprehended within the[141] tropics, they congregate in numerous troops, bounding rapidly from branch to branch, and from tree to tree, in search of the fruits and eggs which constitute their principal means of subsistence. In the course of these peregrinations, which are frequently executed with a velocity scarcely to be followed by the eye, they seem to give a momentary, and but a momentary, attention to every remarkable object that falls in their way, but never appear to remember it again; for they will examine the same object with the same rapidity as often as it recurs, and apparently without in the least recognising it as that which they had seen before. They pass on a sudden from a state of seeming tranquillity to the most violent demonstrations of passion and sensuality; and in the course of a few minutes run through all the various phases of gesture and action of which they are capable, and for which their peculiar conformation affords ample scope. The females treat their young with the greatest tenderness until they become capable of shifting for themselves; when they turn them loose upon the world, and conduct themselves towards them from that time forwards in the same manner as towards the most perfect strangers.

The degrees of their so much vaunted intelligence, which is in general very limited, and rarely capable of being made subservient to the purposes of man, vary almost as much as the ever-changing outline of their form. From the grave and reflective Oran-Otang, whose docility and powers of imitation in his young state have been the theme of so much ridiculous exaggeration and sophistical argumentation, to the stupid and savage Baboon, whose gross brutality is scarcely relieved by a[142] single spark of intelligence, the gradations are regular and easy. A remarkable circumstance connected with the developement of this faculty, or perhaps we should rather say, with its gradual extinction, consists in the fact that it is only in young animals which have not yet attained their full growth, that it is capable of being brought into play; the older individuals, even of the most tractable races, entirely losing the gaiety, and with it the docility, of their youth, and becoming at length as stupid and as savage as the most barbarous of the tribe.

The Monkeys of the Old and of the New World differ from each other in several remarkable points, some of which are universally characteristic of all the species of each, while others, although affording good and tangible means of discrimination, are but partially applicable. Thus the nostrils of all the species inhabiting the Old World are anterior like those of man, and divided only by a narrow septum. In those of the New World, on the contrary, they are invariably separated by a broad division, and consequently occupy a position more or less lateral. In the former again the molar teeth are uniformly five in number, crowned with obtuse and flattened tubercles; while in the latter they are either six in number, or in the few anomalous cases in which they are limited to five, and which are peculiar to a group that ought to occupy an intermediate station between the Monkeys and the Insect-eating Carnivora, their crowns are surmounted by sharp and somewhat elevated points. The tails of all the American Monkeys are of great length, but they differ more or less from each other in the power of suspending themselves by means of that organ, a faculty which is nevertheless[143] common to the greater number of them, and of which those of the Old World are entirely destitute. On the other hand the American species never exhibit any traces of the callosities or of the cheek-pouches, which are so common among the Asiatic and African races.

Each of these grand divisions has been subdivided into several minor groups or genera; but zoologists have hitherto been by no means unanimous with respect to the principles on which this subdivision ought to be effected. The arrangement which appears to be most generally adopted at the present day is that of M. Cuvier and M. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, which is essentially founded on the application of an imaginary rule, first employed by Camper for ascertaining the degree of intelligence, and consequently of ideal beauty, expressed by the human face in its various gradations of elevation or debasement, and called by him the facial angle. Unfortunately, however, the operations of nature in the animal creation can never be subjected to geometrical laws; nor can her innumerable phases be expressed with the precision of a mathematical theorem. This assumed point of comparison varies almost indefinitely, not merely in different species, but even in the same individual; and the Oran-Otang himself, who is supposed to approach most nearly to the human form, offers the most striking illustration of the truth of this observation; inasmuch as in his young and intellectual state his facial angle is equal to 65°, while in his aged and debased condition, in which he has actually been repeatedly described as a different animal under the name of Pongo, it sinks below 30°; degrading him even beneath the level of the most savage and stupid of the Baboons.

[144]

In the foregoing observations we may perhaps be considered as giving too much space to the generalities of the subject; an objection to which we can only answer that nearly the whole of our knowledge of the Monkey tribes consists in generalities. Of the great number of species, upwards of one hundred, which are now known and characterized, very few are distinguished from their immediate fellows by striking and strongly-marked characters, either physical or moral. The groups too are connected by such gradual and easy transitions, that although the typical forms of each, isolated from the mass and placed in contrast with each other, unquestionably exhibit many broadly distinguishing peculiarities, yet the entire series offers a chain so nearly complete and unbroken as scarcely to admit of being treated of in any other way than as one homogeneous whole.

A no less striking than apposite instance of the close affinity between the species, and of the difficulty of distinguishing them from each other, especially in their young state, is furnished by the animals whose figures stand at the head of the present article. They are all three very evidently young individuals, and have not yet reached the period when it would be safe to pronounce with positiveness upon the species, or, were we to adopt the Cuvierian system in its full extent, upon the genera even, to which they respectively belong.

The specimen from which the central figure was taken is in all probability the earlier age of a species of Cercopithecus; but to which of them it should be referred, or whether it belongs to any hitherto characterized species, we may not venture to determine until its characters shall have become more fully developed. The distinctive[145] marks of this genus, which comprehends the smallest Monkeys of the Old Continent, consist in a depressed forehead, with a facial angle of 50°; a flat nose, with the nostrils directed upwards and outwards; cheek-pouches, generally of large size; callosities behind; and a tail of considerable length. The individual before us, in addition to these characters, is remarkable for the reddish brown colour of his upper parts, which gradually disappears in a lighter hue, mingled with a bluish tinge beneath; for the elevated and compressed toupet which advances considerably forwards on his forehead; for the hairs which are thinly scattered over his livid face; and for the spreading tufts of a somewhat lighter colour which occupy the sides of his head and face posteriorly.

The animal which occupies the right hand in the cut appears to be the young of the Macacus cynomolgus, Cuv., the Common Macaque; or rather perhaps, if the colour of the face is to be regarded as affording a sufficient specific distinction, of a new species lately described by M. F. Cuvier under the name of Macacus carbonarius. The Macaques are characterized by the greater elongation of their muzzles, which reduces their facial angle to 40° or 45°; by the strong developement of their superciliary ridges; by the oblique position of their nostrils in the upper surface of their nose; and by the presence of cheek-pouches and callosities. The young animal figured is blackish brown above, and, as is very common among the Monkeys, lighter and of a bluish cast beneath; his hands and face are nearly black; the hairs which cover his forehead form a thick tuft advancing forwards; and his face is almost naked.

We have little hesitation in referring the left hand[146] figure to the Cercopithecus pileatus of M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, the Guenon couronnée of Buffon, which M. Cuvier suspects, with great appearance of truth, to be nothing more than a variety of the Macacus Sinicus, the Bonnet Chinois of the same popular author. It differs from that in fact in little else than in a shorter muzzle, and in a less regularly radiated and depressed disposition of the hair of the upper part of the head; characters which may be fairly regarded as resulting from its immature age. We may also observe that the Macacus radiatus, Geoff., described in the succeeding article, does not appear to be by any means clearly distinguished from the Bonnet Chinois; and that it is highly probable that these three Monkeys form in reality but a single species.

All these animals, which are at present confined in one cage along with several young individuals of the common species of Baboon and with the Bonneted Monkey, exhibit a mixture of playfulness and malice, which renders them extremely amusing. Their gambols with each other are often truly laughable.