Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of AnimalsLee, R., Mrs.
General
Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals
Lee, R., Mrs.
Animal behavior -- Juvenile literature
Mr. Forbes tells a story of a female monkey, (the Semnopithecus
Entellus), who was shot by a friend of his, and carried to his tent.
Forty or fifty of her tribe advanced with menacing gestures, but stood
still when the gentleman presented his gun at them. One, however, who
appeared to be the chief of the tribe, came forward, chattering and
threatening in a furious manner. Nothing short of firing at him seemed
likely to drive him away; but at length he approached the tent door with
every sign of grief and supplication, as if he were begging for the
body. It was given to him, he took it in his arms, carried it away, with
actions expressive of affection, to his companions, and with them
disappeared. It was not to be wondered at that the sportsman vowed never
to shoot another monkey.
Monkeys are eaten in some parts of the Old World, and universally in
South America. M. Bonpland speaks of the flesh as lean, hard and dry;
but that which I tasted in Africa, was white, juicy, and like chicken.
Mr. Bowdich had monkeys served whole before him at the table of the king
of Ashanti, having been roasted in a sitting posture, and he said,
nothing could be more horrid or repugnant than their appearance, with
the skin of the lips dried, and the white teeth, giving an aspect of
grinning from pain.
The howling monkeys of South America, who make the forests resound at
night, or before a coming storm, with their hideous choruses, and whose
hollow and enlarged tongue bone, and expanded lower jaw enable them to
utter those melancholy and startling cries, are larger and fatter than
many others in the same country, and are constantly sought for as food.
They eat the thick, triangular Brazil nuts (Bertholletia Excelsa), and
break the hard pod which contains them with a stone, laying it on the
bough of a tree, or some other stone. They sometimes get their tail
between the two, of course the blow falls upon the tail, and the monkey
bounds away, howling in the most frightful manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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