Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/251

Rh this a pronounced analogy with mankind who, since the existence of the world, though under severe penal legislation, find it so hard a task to observe the difference between mine and thine?

The hungry crowd of quadrumana infest fields and gardens: neither lock nor bolt, neither fence nor wall is an obstacle for those robbers, who steal and destroy everything in their way, whether it be eatable or not. It is not surprising, to any one who has witnessed such depredations, to see the farmers entertain a mortal hatred against these dark, grinning thieves; and the Arabs range them in the category of evil spirits. When they are surprised in their mischievous work, they flee like cowards toward the nearest trees or rocks, the mothers carrying their children. Only when flight is impossible do they show fight, and attack men as well as the biggest beasts of prey, and even elephants, with that impetuous temerity which distinguishes the coward in despair.

After a gestation of from seven to nine months, the female monkey gives birth to one young one, very seldom to twins. The new-born monkey is a little ugly creature, bare of hairs, with spindling limbs and a repulsive, senile face. But the mother is passionately fond of her monster, and caresses and nurses it with remarkable devotion. She does not leave it for a single moment, she presses it to her heart, rocks it to and fro, and takes the utmost care to keep it absolutely clean. In the first period of life the baby is apathetic and almost insensible, but begins gradually to play with urchins of its age. The mother is a patient observer of the first steps of her beloved, and watches carefully that no harm may befall it. In the mean time, she trains it; and the first virtue inculcated in the mind of the youngster is obedience, obedience in the strictest sense of the word. Men have ridiculed the maternal affection of the brute, and speak of "apish love." In our eyes the tenderness exhibited by the monkey may have a ridiculous side, but where is the man who could, without deep emotion, witness the anxiety of a mother-ape nursing her sick child? I must confess that, to my eye, in such cases she is at least the equal of the human mother. If the young ape dies, the spectacle is a piteous one. The mother can not be separated from the dead body, refuses all food, and frequently perishes from grief. In such crises the ape proves certainly his congeniality with the human race, and in his moral affections could stand as an example to many men.

The intellectual cultivation of which the monkeys are susceptible neither raises them so high above the average of mammifers, nor places them so far beneath the level of mankind, as some people contend. Further on, we find in no order of animals, as far as intellect is concerned, so wide a difference between the highest and the lowest individuals as among the monkeys, while, in inverse proportion, the lowest gifted human creature hardly differs from the apes whose intelligence is most developed. In many instances the mental and bodily