Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/465

Rh that I was really afraid they would lay violent hands upon me. They are especially diverting as you see them on and about the mud wall that surrounds the town. This is appropriated especially to their residence, and here they assemble in great numbers, exhibiting all the phases of monkey life. You see them of all ages and statures in family groups; the aged grandsire, gray-haired and wise, deep in meditation, the father watching the gymnastics of the younger members of the family, as they strengthen their muscles by swinging from the tree-boughs, while the mother nurses her hairy pet upon her knee. Two staid matrons will be gravely examining each other's coats for any unfortunate insects, while snappish and pugnacious old bachelors are bristling their hair, stiffening their tails, and exhibiting every symptom of an approaching combat. On any alarm, they are all off in a twinkling, the mother running up some tree as nimbly as the rest, quite unimpeded by the baby-monkey which clasps its arms around her body and clings to her till she reaches a place of safety.

Why, it may be asked, if they are so troublesome, are they not driven away or destroyed? The answer furnishes an evidence of the degrada-