Throwing of branches is a conspicuous part of the reactions to men. Quite frequently they break off and drop limbs close to the intruder. Green branches sometimes, but most often large dead limbs weighing up to ten pounds may be dropped. “This behavior,” according to Dr. Carpenter, “cannot be described as throwing although the animal may cause the object to fall away from the perpendicular by a sharp twist of its body or a swinging circular movement of its powerful tail. This dropping of objects from trees may be considered as a defensive adaptation arising from the more generalized habit of shaking branches. A significant variation occurs when the animal breaks off a limb and holds it for a time—from a second to half a minute—before letting it fall.” Normally the monkeys travel along the upper surfaces of limbs, using all four feet and carrying the tail arched over the back. When crossing from one tree to another they use their powerful tails to support themselves from limbs. During such movements hands, arms and tails are used at the same time to make contacts with supports. The monkeys have a strong tendency to keep their heads upward. Therefore, when coming down a perpendicular limb, vine or tree trunk they go backwards rather than head foremost. They frequently make long jumps outward and downward, covering at times more than thirty feet _The Insect That is Born Pregnant_ Among nature’s weirdest tricks is the strange phenomenon known as merokinosis, reported for a single family of almost microscopic insects. The little creatures are fathers and mothers before they are born. They are a species of mite which infests grass. They belong to a family which, almost alone among insects, gives birth to living young. Nearly all insects are egg layers. The eggs, usually deposited in enormous numbers, hatch outside the body of the mother. Then the individuals go through a series of metamorphoses—nymph, larva and the like—before reaching their own reproductive maturity. These grass mites, however, are born fully adult animals. A sack on the body of the female swells until it is about 500 times the original body size. It is filled with eggs and a nutritive fluid. Within this sack the eggs hatch and the new generation passes through all the ordinary stages of insect metamorphosis. Finally, when they are fully mature, the mother dies, the sack breaks, and the host of new mites emerges. It was long thought that the mites were striking examples of parthenogenesis, or asexual reproduction. Females isolated as soon as they were born gave birth to large numbers of young. Parthenogenisis is not uncommon among the lower animals. Invariably however, except in this one case, all the offspring are of one sex. The supposedly virgin birth families of the mites contain both males and females in various proportions. _Bull-dog Animals_