The Winners in Life’s Race; or, The Great Backboned Family

Fig. 64.

The Aye-Aye and a Lemur in the forests of Madagascar.

And among them at night, when the soft clear moonlight shines down on the thick forests in the

interior of the island, comes a small ghost-like animal, the “Aye-Aye,” with wide-staring eyes, furry body, and long bony jointed fingers. He utters a plaintive cry as he creeps from bough to bough, stripping the bark off the trees with his strong chisel-like teeth to find some worm-eaten hole into which he thrusts his skinny fourth finger to pick out a grub, and then moistens his meal by drawing the same long finger rapidly through some watery crevice, and then through his lips for drink. This strange creature too is a kind of lemur, so far as he can be classed at all, with his gnawing teeth, his hind feet like a monkey’s, his large spoon-shaped ears, and his uneven fingered hands, with strong curved claws. At any rate he belongs to no other group, but tells us once more the old story of creatures in isolated countries putting on strange shapes suited to extreme habits of life.

Now between these gentle, but low-brained and dreamy lemurs, and the active, intelligent, mischievous monkeys, there is a great gap. The creatures most like them are the little Marmosets of South America, which run like squirrels among the forest trees of Brazil, feeding on bananas, spiders, and grasshoppers, and making their nests in the topmost boughs. But these marmosets are true monkeys, with expressive faces, and the peculiar wide-spread nostrils which we find in all the monkeys of the New World. For it is to South America, that land of the less advanced forms of life, that we must look for the lower kind of quadrumana, with side-opening nostrils,[153] thumbs which move in a line with the

Footnote 153. Platyrrhine monkeys, from Platus broad, rhines nostrils.

fingers of the hand, and not nearly so much across the palm as in the higher apes, and thirty-six teeth in their mouth instead of thirty-two,[154] as in man and in the Old World monkeys.

None of these American monkeys ever become so man-like as the Apes of Africa and Asia, but in many ways they bring monkey-life in the trees to greater perfection, in the dense forests of Brazil and Paraguay, and even as far north as Guatemala. The lumbering heavy Gorilla of Africa, though higher in the scale, is a cumbersome fellow compared to the nimble little thumbless Spider monkeys of the Amazons, which hang by their bare tipped tails to the branches and to each other, chattering away like a troop of children as they gather the bananas and other fruits, or catch insects and young birds, or fly screaming with fear from the stealthy puma or the fierce eagle. With the trees for their kingdom, their tail for a fifth hand, and the warm sun to cheer and invigorate them, these spider-monkeys and their quieter friends the Capucine monkeys (often seen on London organs), and the Woolly monkeys (Fig. 65), lead a pleasant life enough, till misfortune or old age overtakes them. Their friends the Howler monkeys, which also have grasping tails, seek the deep recesses of the forest and creep quietly from tree to tree until night comes, when hundreds of them at once will make the woods re-echo with their deep howling cry, which they produce by a special voice-organ in their throat; and with them come out the little Owl monkeys, which sleep by day in the hollows

Footnote 154. Except the marmosets, which have a peculiar dentition of their own.

of the trees. These, with the various kinds of Saki monkeys, which cannot cling by their tails, but have fairly good brains and quick intelligence, make up the monkey population of America.

Fig. 65.

A Woolly Monkey and child (Lagothryx Humboldtii), showing grasping tail. (Proc. Zool. Soc.)

Here, then, we have a whole group of quickwitted tree-monkeys, which, from their structure, we

know must have started long ago on a line of their own, wandering down into South America, where they had but few enemies except the boas and pumas and birds of prey, till man came to kill and eat them. And if we wonder how they have gained their quick mischievous intelligence in those quiet pathless forests, we must remember that though a grasping hand and foot seem at first sight of very little importance, yet by means of them the monkey moves rapidly from place to place, swinging, leaping, running, and climbing along the boughs, which are its paths from tree to tree. And since rapid change of any kind makes the eye quick of sight, the ear acute, and the brain active and alive to take in new impressions, it is no wonder that the monkey mind has become alert and ready during the ages that these animals have been chasing and cheating and outwitting each other, or tenderly rearing their young ones among the dangers of the forest.

And now if we turn back to the Old World, it is not so much the smaller active tree-monkeys that interest us, for they live much the same life as their American cousins, although they differ from them in never having grasping tails, in having thirty-two teeth like man, in the openings of their nostrils which turn downwards[155] like our own, and in having either cheek-pouches to stow away their food, or stomachs with three compartments like animals that chew the cud, so that they can keep a store within. But in spite of these differences they appear outwardly much the same as the American monkeys; they leap and jump among the trees, and it is not till we come to

Footnote 155. Catarrhine monkeys; kata downward, rhines nostrils.

the Baboons and the tailless man-like apes, that we find ourselves studying quite another kind of life.

Imagine an undulating country of corn-fields and rough vegetation in Abyssinia, or southwards towards the Cape, with long ranges of rocky hills rising up behind, and precipices leading to the narrow defiles of the mountains, and then picture to yourself, descending from those mountains, a troop of two hundred or more large hairy monkeys, with short tails growing from between bare seat-pads, dog-like faces and something of a dog’s shape, as they gallop clumsily along with all four feet flat upon the ground. These are the African Baboons, and they form a goodly company, the chiefs marching first, grand old elders with stout hairy manes to protect them when fighting. These come cautiously, peering over the precipices, and climbing up rocks and stones to survey the country round before allowing the troop to advance; and behind them follow the young males, and the mothers with their children on their backs, shambling down till they reach the fertile grounds, where sentinels are set to watch for danger, while the multitude feed, filling their cheek-pouches and even storing the corn under their armpits. Then when all are satisfied, if no alarm has been given they wander slowly back, resting by the way to chew their food or drink at some mountain stream, but never leaving the company till they are safe back under the rocky ledges of the steep hillside, where they make their home.[156]

For these baboons, unlike other monkeys, live in hilly rocky places, and not in forests, and therefore

Footnote 156. See Parkyns’ Life in Abyssinia.

they are in much more danger from wild beasts, especially the leopard, so that they rarely venture abroad except in company, and lead an extremely gregarious life. Yet though they run on all fours, and look less human than most monkeys, even the lowest baboon, the Mandrill (easily known by the coloured swellings on its cheeks and hind quarters), which has many points in its skeleton like four-footed animals, has true thumbs on its hands and toe-thumbs on its feet, and uses them to lift up stones to search for scorpions and other insects; while the mother baboons dandle their little ones, or give them a box on the ear when troublesome, in true human fashion.

Moreover, they have developed great intelligence in their social life, and the youngsters are soon taught to keep silence when danger is near, to follow their leader, and to obey the sign of command; while, in their turn, the leaders will defend the weak and feeble of the troop, as in the well-known case of the brave old baboon who came down alone in the face of the dogs to fetch away a little one only six months old, which had been left behind crying for help.

Still, notwithstanding their cleverness and courage, these baboons, with their long hind legs and dog-like faces, running on all fours, travelling in troops, and feeding in the corn-fields and meadows, remind us more of four-footed animals than any other of the monkey tribe, and we must turn again to dense forests and tangled jungles to find those large and tailless apes which have risen highest in monkey life.

If we go back in imagination to those days when the wild beasts of the forests, the strong elephants and rhinoceroses, the fierce tigers, lions, and leopards, had not yet been persecuted by man, but roamed in great numbers over the whole tropical and temperate world, we can easily imagine that a set of animals which could climb along the tops of the lofty trees in impenetrable forests would have a great advantage, even though elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffaloes were crashing through the underwood below, and the fierce leopard was on the watch for them when they ventured to descend. With their tree-loving life, the monkeys would have every chance of escape, climbing along the topmost boughs with wonderful rapidity, to find refuge in gloomy recesses where they might bring up their young in safety. And as they grew in strength and intelligence, gradually retiring to the thickly wooded part of Southern Asia and tropical Africa, they might even succeed in driving out their opponents, as the Gorilla is said to have driven the elephant from the Gaboon country, because he interfered with the trees which he makes his special home.

So we must go to such tangled virgin forests as those of Sumatra, Borneo, and Malacca, to find the long-armed tailless Gibbons,[157] which once wandered over Europe, but now roam no further than Southern Asia, where they swing themselves along from branch to branch by means of their lengthy arms, which are so out of proportion to their legs that when they stand upright they can touch the ground with their knuckles. These gibbons are gentle creatures, with not too much brain, but wonderfully elegant and agile, which is more than can be said for the intelligent

Footnote 157. Hylobates, or walker in the woods.

Orangutan[158] or Mias which wanders in the same forest. He has shorter arms, only reaching to the ankle, and he climbs half upright from tree-top to tree-top, grasping the boughs and swaying slowly onwards, or holds on by his toe-thumbs while he stretches up to the more slender branches to gather the fruit and young buds.

A strange object he looks, a great red, hairy, man-like creature, between four and five feet high, thrusting his huge black face from out of the dense foliage as he devours the Durian and Mangosteen fruits, seated comfortably in a fork of the tree, and then if disturbed he is off far more quickly than you would suppose possible for such a heavy creature, running, climbing, and creeping half upright till he is lost in the forest. He rarely comes down, except to shamble across some open space from one wood to another, or to drink in the river, where the natives say the crocodile attacks him, but he beats him and carries off the victory; while in the trees his only enemy is the python, which tries to encircle him in its coils. Nor does he often wander in company, for Mr. Wallace tells us that he never saw a father and mother orangutan together, though either of them may be seen with the young ones. He seems to lead, on the whole, a solitary life, and when the sun goes down retires into a nest of leaves low down in one of the trees, and sleeps till it is broad daylight and the dew is dried off the leaves.