The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1919-05-18

TO HOHhegS lOI III Ollu6CS " S4OS0
aIligatorinfested streams in South
- America by clinging to one an
others tails?.
Explorers, historians and geographers
have stated this with great positiveness
over and over again for 300 years.
Our school books and biographies have
taught this for many generations. The
large picture on this page is, in fact, taken
from Holiness Fourth Reader" and a
somewhat similar illustration can be founu
in MitcheIrs New Primary Geography"
But science now challenges this interest
ing statement about the accomplishments
and ressurcefulness of South American
monkeys. Recent research by the author
tiles of the New York American Museum
of Natural History fails to corroborate it.
Professor E. W.. Gudger, professor OF
biology, writing in Natural History, the
journal of the American Museum, has
traced the origin of this story he thinks,
to the Jesuit priest, Father Jose de Acosta,
who published a book of travels in Latin
in 1889 with the following statement:
did see in Capira one of these monkies
leape from one tree to another, which was
on the other side of a river, making me
much to wonder. They leape where they
list, winding their TALES about braunch
to shake it.: and when they will leape fur
Their than they can at once, they use a
pretty devise, tying themselves by the
tales one Of another, and by this meanes
make as it were a chaine Of many: then
doe they launch themselves forth, and the
first, helpen by the force of the rest, takes
holde where hee list, and so hangs to a
bough, and so helpes all the rest, till they
Be gotten up
What the American Museum would like
to know is whether any living human be-
ing has really seen monkeys build
simian bridge of their own arms, bodies
and tails, as Father de Acosta says he
saw them do
Professor Gudger has studied the sub
ject with painstaking care and believes
that Father de Acosta's tale has been
handed down from one author to another.
But he can find no scientist or native of
the present day who will vouch for the
truth of it.
Lionel Wafer companion of the cele-
brated navigator Captain Dampier, in his
book printed in London in 1893, says that
in crossing the isthmus they saw and
killed a. number of monkeys, and con-
tinues:
They are very waggish kind of Mon
key, and plaid a thousand antick Tricks
as we march'd at any time through the
Woods, skipping from Bough to BOugh,
ho at
ones Back, making Faces at US. To pass
from top to top of high Trees, whose
Branches are a little too far asunder for
their Leaping they will sometimes hang
down by one anothers Tails in Chain;
and swinging in that manner, the lower
most catches hold of Bough Of the other
Tree, and draws up the rest Of them"
In 1862 another writer, Don Ramon Paez,
going into detail as to just how the Mon.
key Bridge is made, explains it as follows:
4. mo less remarkable is their ingenious
method of crossing torrents and other
minor streams which they often encounter
in their ceaseless perambulations through
the forest AS among men, all cannot
swim with equal facility, so it is also with
monkeys; accordingly the leaders OF the
troop, generally the strongest Of the party,
climb to the spreading branches Of some
tree projecting over the stream; one Of
them then twists his tail 1rmly around
branch, and letting his body hang, seiZes
upon the tail of the nearest comrade. who
in his turn performs the same operation
with the next and so on until a sort of
chain or living pendulum is formed, which,
in obedience to the laws Of equilibrium
oscillates slowly but constantly from their
combined efforts to reach the opposite
bank. This finally achieved, the last
monkey secures himself to the most con.
Yenient tree. The others of the chain, now
disengaged from the tree at the opposite
side of the stream, wade through the
water, each helped by his neighbor, as
sisted likewise by the current. Some are,
however. occasionally drowned the last
one in the chain especially, which circum-
stance has probably given rise to the popu-
lar proverb, Ell ultimo moro siempre sc
ahOga-the last monkey is sure to be
drowned"
Commenting on this statement of the
distinguished traveller and naturalist, Pro-
fessor Gudger writes:
This account is very circumstantial
and if one reads PaeZs book and sees how
accurate in the main are his natural his
tory observations, one feels inclined to
lend credence. Then, too how natural is
the proverb about the drowning of the
last monkey. At first | was inclined to
think this slip, for why was not the end
Of the chain on the other side Of the river
after the crossing as high above the water