marmosets. Two of these are by this time sufficiently acclimatized to be
placed in a separate cage in the large room of the Monkey House, where
they live in great contentment with another little tropical rarity, the
Pinche monkey from Guiana. Except on very hot days, they prefer to spend
their time curled up in a nest of hay, made in a small box at the top of
the cage. When the keeper calls them, there is an answering cry from the
inmate, and in a few seconds the sounds in the box are like those from a
nest of active little twittering birds. Presently three bright little
heads and a row of six miniature hands appear at the door, so rapidly
put out and withdrawn that it is impossible to say to which of the
inmates they belong. Then, after much conversation, apparently directed
to the question of which is to get out of bed first, one marmoset
descends a few inches of the stick which serves as a ladder to the
sleeping-box, eagerly pushed from behind by the others, who are anxious
to go shares in the food offered below, but unwilling to fetch it. When
once out of the nest, the beauty of the marmoset’s colouring, as well as
of its face and limbs, is at once apparent. The fur is more like the
plumage of birds or moths than the hair of any four-footed animal, loose
and feathery, and mottled with tortoise-shell on black, like the
ornament seen in some of the rarer Oriental pheasants; this mottling is
exchanged for bars on the tail, and runs up between the shoulders to the
neck. The beautiful little pink faces of these black marmosets, set with
bright, jewel-like brown eyes, are fringed over the eyebrows and above
the ears with white fan-like sprays. Their movements, like their voices
and their fur, resemble those of birds rather than of monkeys, a
resemblance which their insect-feeding habits indirectly promote. The
king of the tribe, the lion marmoset, covered with golden-yellow fur,
with a mane-like cloak across its shoulders, is not among the present
inmates of the Zoo; but some years ago a pair of black-eared marmosets
produced a family, whose welfare was the engrossing care of the keeper.
These tiny creatures were scarcely so large as a mouse, with shorter and
lighter fur than their parents, but of exquisite proportions, their baby
hands being, it is said, one of the most beautiful instances of minute
proportion ever seen in young animals. For three weeks the marmoset
mother nursed her babies, until after one exceptionally cold night,
father, mother, and infants were all found dead.
As a rule it is fog, not cold, which is fatal to the monkeys at the Zoo.
In the past year, which was exceptionally sunny and free from fog,
though with many weeks of low temperature, scarcely any rare monkeys
died. In the season which preceded it the fogs killed sixty. But the
marmosets are an exception to the rule. They can no more endure cold
than a tropical butterfly, and a fall of a few degrees of temperature on
a winter night chills the last sparks of life in their tender little
bodies. The Pinche monkey fully deserves its place in the marmoset cage.
Except in face it might pass for one of the latter, for its body has the
same bird-like plumage, barred with yellow and black, and it warbles a
little song like some tropical wren. But its head and neck are plumed
with white, like the war-dress of some Indian chief, and its black face
and high features make the resemblance more amusing and complete.
Of all the American monkeys the Capuchins seem the most hardy and
long-lived species. They occupy a portion of the large central cage at
the Zoo, being well able to take care of themselves both in human and
monkey society. The last addition to the family is a brown Capuchin, a
bright, intelligent, round-headed, round-eyed little monkey, with a long
thick tail, and a coat of rich brown fur. Though perfectly fearless when
with grown men, pulling them towards it with all the strength of its
little arms, this Capuchin has a vehement and aggressive dislike of
boys. The instant one approaches the cage it warns him to keep his
distance with menacing and imperious gestures, and if a face comes too
near the bars, slips its arms through and slaps the odious countenance
with the utmost fury and aversion. The monkey appreciation of degrees in
human development is as alert and vigilant as the limits which human
instinct sets between themselves and the latest prodigy of infant
humanity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LARGER MONKEYS.
THOUGH most 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 its being 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 is strange 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.
[Illustration:
MONKEYS PELTING COOLIES WITH FIR-CONES. _From a
Japanese 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 a frightful 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 Monkey House 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 below miles 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIZARDS AND CROCODILES AT THE ZOO.
IT is hardly matter for surprise that the colubrine snakes, with their
gorgeous colouring and wonderful form, or the poisonous cobras,
rattlesnakes, and puff-adders which inhabit the closed cases in the
Reptile House at the Zoo, excite more interest and comment among
visitors than the four-footed reptiles, ranging from the alligators of
South America to the tiny “gecko” lizards of Southern Europe, which have
their abode under the same roof. Yet there is something peculiarly
interesting in these modern survivors of the ancient saurians which
swarmed in the hot and steaming waters of a prehistoric world, and seem,
like the elephants and rhinoceroses, to carry the imagination back to
the circumstances and surroundings of a previous though still more
ancient era. It may, perhaps, be taken as evidence of the unfitness of
such survivals for modern times, that the only inhabitants of the
Reptile House which seem to invite unqualified dislike and disgust are
the crocodiles and alligators which swarm in the large oval tank in the
centre. It seems at first somewhat strange that creatures, many of which
are of a strength and ferocity almost equal to that of the largest
carnivora, can be kept in safety within the slight barrier formed by the
incurved railing which surrounds the pool; but the natural strength of
the alligator is only equalled by its sluggishness, and the hideous
beasts are content to doze and feed all day in the warm and steaming
water. The art of crocodile culture is now fairly understood, and when
the baby “basilisk” is transferred from the cool depths of the
watering-pot in which he spends his infancy, in the nurseries behind the
snakes’ quarters, to the tropical temperature of the tank, it thrives
apace. The monster alligator, which now measures some ten feet in
length, came from the Mississippi when about twelve months old, nine
years ago. Hideous, huge, and hide-bound in armour of horn, it swings
round like an enormous eft, and as it lies just beneath the surface of
the water, shows, more clearly than any book can picture, the curious
adaptation to surroundings of the carnivorous water-lizard. The eyes on
their raised orbits are set like dormer-windows in the head. The
nostrils are two tiny slits in a raised boss at the end of the nose;
apparently the sluggish beast is a quick breather, for the respirations
are at the rate of twenty-eight per minute, or nearly double those of a
man at rest. Another alligator has been in the collection for twenty-two
years, but does not yet equal the size of the later comer, owing, it is
said, to the early days spent in the cold and cramped quarters provided
before the building of the new house. It is, however, a formidable
creature; and as it sprawls on its stomach across the big tree-stump in
the centre, with its ugly webbed claws dangling on either side, its
mouth partly open, and its tail drooping in the water, its appearance is
sufficiently repulsive to deter the most well-meaning visitor from
offering the charitable bun. Crocodiles from the Nile, India, and Ceylon
share the waters with the alligators. The crocodile evidently bears the
same analogy to the alligator as the frog to the toad. It is lighter in
colour and in build, and a more active, as well as a more malicious
creature. Neither is it so entirely hideous, though the lower jaw shows
projecting tusks like those of a wild boar. The creature’s eyes,
celebrated in connection with the “crocodile tears,” with which legend
declared that it attracted its sympathizing victims to the bank of the
stream, are highly “decorative,” if not beautiful. The head, narrow and
flat, resembles the head of a snake; the nose is sharp, and the fixed
and motionless eyes are of the palest dusty gold, set in a short horny
pillar of a deeper golden brown. The crocodile’s coat of armour is less
complete than that of the alligator; and its quick, vivacious movements
make it far more troublesome to the keepers when the tank has to be
refilled and cleansed, than the big alligators, which will allow
themselves to be used as stepping-stones as the water ebbs away. The
crocodiles and their kin exhaust the list of noxious lizards at the Zoo,
with one curious exception. The heloderin, a fat and torpid lizard from
Arizona, is supposed to be the sole existing member of its tribe which
possesses not only the poison-glands which exist in most of the toads,
but also the true poison-teeth, with a channel for the emission of the
venom. The lizard is about 1½ ft. long, with a fat, fleshy body, a round
tail ending in a blunt point, and a flat head with squared sides,
resembling a small padlock. The whole body is covered with a curious
coat of scales, like black and pink beads, arranged in an arabesque
pattern. In its daily life it is a dull and stupid creature, feeding
mainly on eggs, which it breaks and laps with its tongue. Its first and
only victim was a guinea-pig, which was put into its cage with a view to
testing the reports as to its poisonous nature, which were by no means
universally credited. The lizard bit the guinea-pig in the leg, and the
animal died in a minute and a half—almost as soon as after the bite of a
cobra.
[Illustration:
ALLIGATOR. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton.
]
Eggs are favourite food with many lizards and snakes; but the “monitor,”
a very large and handsome lizard approaching the size of the half-grown
crocodile, is perhaps the most remarkable egg-swallower of the tribe. It
bolts the eggs unbroken, and the oval morsel may be watched in its slow
descent down the long neck until it disappears in the lower regions.
Many of the smaller lizards in the house are almost unmatched for
quaintness of form and beauty of colouring, among the inhabitants of the
Zoo. It sometimes happens that the chameleons die in winter before the
summer stock has arrived to take their place, as most of those brought
from the Cape die when the vessels enter the cold atmosphere of the
English Channel. But the “horned lizards” of California are hardly less
amusing in form and habits than the true chameleons. Shaped like a
miniature sole, their backs bristling with pinkish spikes like the
thorns of a briar-rose, they bury themselves in the sand at the bottom
of their cage until the head only projects, presenting an exact
resemblance to one of the thorny “burrs” which lie scattered on the
Californian desert. If possible, the lizard remains still until the
spiders and other insects walk unsuspecting into its mouth; but at the
Zoo, where insects are scarce, the horned lizards have to some extent
abandoned concealment, and rush upon their prey with a suddenness and
ferocity most amusing in such tiny creatures. The writer watched a
violent contest between a horned lizard and a “gecko” for the possession
of a mealworm, which was wriggling on the sand. The “gecko,” one of the
swift and agile little lizards which are so common in Southern Europe,
was darting down from a branch above just as the horned lizard made its
spring, and each seized the mealworm at opposite ends. In the tug-of-war
which followed, the ground-lizard proved an easy winner; and the “gecko”
retired defeated, to finish pulling off its old skin, which hung loosely
round its shoulders like a jacket. The cast skin, which was of an
exquisite, semi-transparent grey colour, like that of a moonstone, was
pulled off by the lizard in long strips, by the aid of its teeth and
feet. The toads perform this operation in a far neater manner, pulling
their cast skins over their heads with their hands, as a football-player
strips off his jersey.
Perhaps the tamest, if not the most beautiful among the smaller
reptiles, are the odd little palm-lizards which have recently arrived at
the Zoo. They are vegetable feeders, and their appetite for
cabbage-leaves is so keen, and the diet supplied so liberal, that after
a hearty meal they resemble a well-stuffed oval pincushion with a small
lizard’s head, feet, and tail attached to the padding. Yet, even in this
condition, they are ready to eat if fresh food be offered to them,
sitting contentedly in the visitor’s hand, and “swelling visibly” as
they munch their cabbage, like the lady who excited the alarm of Mr.
Weller, senior, at the Temperance tea. A near neighbour of the
palm-lizards is the existing type of the impostor frog, who tried to
inflate himself to the size of the bullock, according to the fable.
Æsop’s frog, no doubt, lived in the swamps of Lake Copais; but the
strange creature, which naturalists have named the “adorned
ceratophorus,” but which is nothing but an enormous fat round caricature
of a frog, with a mouth wide enough to swallow a young chicken, lives in
South America. His daily habit is to bury himself in the loose earth
where small animals, such as rats, mice, other frogs, and the young of
ground-birds, ducks or chickens are likely to wander. Half covered with
dry earth, the frog resembles a patch of greenish wet moss on wet mud.
The chicken or rat which approaches this is immediately seized by an
enormous mouth, which opens and shuts with a snap like the back of a
watch. Like other selfish and greedy people, this frog is extremely
short-tempered and resentful when its own comfort is interfered with:
and when poked, and otherwise teased, swells its body out to nearly
double its original size, and slowly hops with gasps and growls after
its tormentor in a paroxysm of rage and excitement.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM THE ANIMALS’ POINT OF VIEW.[13]
Footnote 13:
The immunity of the keepers at the Zoo from serious injury or attack
by the animals in their charge is _à priori_ evidence that the
animals’ point of view is not necessarily hostile.