Part 17

The pre-eminence in this respect belongs without question to the 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 Presently three bright little heads and a row of six miniature hands appear at the door, so rapidly put out and withdrawn that it is impossible to say to which of the inmates they belong.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.

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.