The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1897-04-24
AMERICAN MONKEYS.
Some Varieties Found in the Bra
zilian Fore SITS.
Habits and Peculiarities of the Inter est
Ing Little Creatures That Amuse
the Visitors at Our
Museums

|
J Museums
Monkeys that are seen in museums
and menageries in this country are
chiefly from South America, although
Africa is fairly well represented. Euro
pean naturalists who have seen and
studied the American monkeys only in
captivity in the countries of the writers
invariably refer to them as less intelli-
gent and less playful than other mem
bers Of the great family. These writers
appear to forget that Judah cannot
sing the songs of Israel in a strange
land. These children of the wild woods
OF the American tropics never fully re-
cover from the pains and terrors of an
ocean voyage, and they are shocked out
of all gayety by the chill and damp air
OF Europe. He who has seen them
rollicking, leaping, riotously playing,
chattering, and grinning in their native
wilds, and who has observed the acute
ness, intelligence, astuteness and Sc
cretiveness with which they make a
raid upon plantations and orchards Is
ready to swear they are the most mis-
chievous, playful and sagacious crea-
lures in all the earth. Their resem-
blance to man is absolutely startling,
the baby chimpanzee, not the adult,
alone of all the old world group Offering
anything to compare with them. This
resemblance becomes more striking
when, as consumption advances, the
face grows pensive and melancholy and
seems to have the agony of soul
written upon the wrinkles and lines OF
the countenance. The writer shot one
only, coaita (atelep. paniscus), in q
blg forest a few miles distant from Para,
in Brazil, and the memory of the deed
still broods as an avenging Nemesis.
These creatures, says the Chicago
Tribune, are found in greatest numbers
along the upper waters Of the Amazon,
but they range nearly Or quite to the
Atlantic seacoast. They have long,
coarse, glossy black hair, while their
faces are reddish flesh color. They
are thumbless, like the African colobos,
and exceedingly agile.
The most curious of all the American
family is the genus of howlers mycetes).
These creatures correspond in meas
ure to certain of the gibbons, which
appear to sing in sort of unison, while
the howlers really do SO sing. They
make chorus whose swell runs out
three or four miles in every direction
and causes an imaginative person to
think that every beast of the forest is
engaged in deadly contest and putting
forth his most tireless effort to frighten'
away his adversary byresounding cries.
The lagothryxes offer a species, the
caparro, whose features are startlingly
like those of a negro, the head being
round and large, while the face is ebon
in its blackness and entirely naked. It
is scarcely more than half the length of
the nowIer, out 1t Is SAID, unlike all
other South American monkeys, to fre-
quently stand upon it's hind legs, and
when it does its resemblance to the
negro is complete. Indians hunt and
kill it with blowpipe, out of which
they shoot little poisoned arrows. The
caparros travel about a great deal,
chiefly from tree to tree, and on these
journeys the mothers carry their young
upon their backs-not in their arms, as
is the ordinary practice of monkey
mothers.
Probably the most intelligent and
certainly the most tractable of all the
American monkeys is the chameck, a
native of Brazil. It soon learns to
recognize and love its master and is
capable of superior training. The
creature is striking, and, indeed, very
pretty for monkey, the fur being long
and falling down gracefully over the
body and limbs and being nearly uni
formly black in color. Like all the new
world monkeys thus far named its tail is
its fifth hand, and, indeed, is far more
useful than any on e of the other four.
Representatives of the large families
of spider and capuchin monkeys are
what one sees most in collections in the
United States. They offer great va
riety in coloring and size, but are by
no means the handsomest or most in
telligent types. The capuchins are red
faced, round-headed, small, active,
graceful and long-tailed. They con-
clude the prehensile tailed grouping,
and are followed by the dainty and
exceedingly pretty squirrel monkeys,
the highest type of which is the golden
haired (chrysothrix). The night mon
keys are those queer-looking creatures,
the marmosetos, and the list, the latter
always favorite among monkey fam
ciers because of their winning, gentle
and affectionate ways.
Monkeys are-well, monkeys. They
look like men, often act like men, and
some of them behave better than GER
tain members of human society. Un-
less one have a deep-seated fellow
feeling for all the creatures of God he
had better be content with occasional
visits to the monkeys in the gardens
and museums Too constant association
with them is rather trying to ones pa
tience and the amusingness of their !
tricks, which are usually repetitions,
does not repay one for the mischief
they do or the petulance they exhibit. /
Take them all in all, man has no special
reason for showing pride in trying to
trace family relationship with them.
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