In the fairy-tales of the old Hindoo scriptures monkeys figure as counsellors of nonplussed heroes, and in the crisis of the Titan war the Devas themselves condescend to seek the advice of the monkey Honuman, who contrives to outwit the prince of the night-spirits. In the international fable of "Reynard the Fox," a she-monkey on the eve of the trial by battle suggests the stratagem that turns the scales against the superior strength of the wolf Isegrim. The _mens æqua in arduis_ is, indeed, a simian characteristic. Monkeys never have their wits more completely about them than in the moment of a sudden danger, and a higher development of the same faculty distinguishes the Caucasian from all rival races, even from the sharp-witted Semites. After the conquest of Algiers the French tried to conciliate the native element by educating a number of young Arabs and giving them a chance to compete with the cadets of St.-Cyr. They made excellent routine-officers, but even their patron, General Clausel, admitted that they "could not be trusted in a panic." Dr. Langenbeck mentions a family of Silesian peasants who seemed to have an hereditary predisposition to the abnormity known as microcephalism, or small-headedness. They were not absolute idiots, but remarkably slow-spoken and all extremely _averse to active occupations_. An active disposition is generally a pretty safe gauge of mental capacity. Intellectual vigor leads to action. To a person of mental resources inactivity is more irksome than the hardest work, and sluggishness is justly used as a synonyme of imbecility. Exertion under the pressure of want is, however, not incompatible with an inert disposition, and spontaneous activity, the love of busy-ness for its own sake, can be ascribed only to men and monkeys; monkeys, at least, are the only animals in whom repletion and old age cannot dampen that passion. After a full meal an elephant will stand for hours in a sort of piggish torpor; a gorged bird seeks the tree-shade; an overfed dog and nearly every old dog becomes a picture of laziness. Monkeys rest only during sleep. Old age does not affect their nimbleness; they can be fattened, for I have seen baboons as sleek as seals, but, like Gibbon, Henry Buckle, and Marshal Vendôme, they prove that the energy of a strong will can bear up under such burdens. Madame de Staël, too, managed to combine a progressive _embonpoint_ with the undiminished brilliancy of her genius, though it is certain that adipose tissue does not feed the flame of every mind. Charles Dickens in his "American Notes" expresses the opinion that no vigor of mental constitution could be proof against the influence of solitary confinement; but the narrow monkey-cages of our zoological prisons show that the minds of the little captives can stand the test of even that ordeal. They play with their shadows, if the nakedness of their four walls does not afford any other pastime.