The Tower Menagerie : $b comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history.Bennett, Edward Turner
History
The Tower Menagerie : $b comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history.
minutes afterwards. This was a severe loss to Mr. Cops, who prized it
highly, and to whom, in return, it was greatly attached. On seeing its
keeper it would often place itself in a variety of attitudes, to court
his attention and caresses, extending its nose and anterior feet, or,
suddenly turning round, exposing its back and waiting for several minutes
in this posture with its head placed on the ground. It delighted in being
patted and rubbed, even by strangers; but violently resented abuse and
ill treatment. Its principal food was bread.
Our figure was taken from the stuffed skin which is preserved in the
Museum of the Zoological Society.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
MONKEYS.
_SIMIÆ._ LINN.
It may perhaps seem to require some apology that we have ventured so
far to depart from the ordinary system of arrangement as to remove the
Monkeys from the station which they have hitherto usually been permitted
to occupy at the head of the class, and to transfer them to their present
position. We will not attempt to conceal that in so doing we were chiefly
actuated by the desire of placing at the commencement of our series the
largest and most attractive of the animals of which it was composed;
and those which, in a Menagerie like that which we have undertaken to
illustrate, always constitute the most imposing feature. But while we
acknowledge the influence of this feeling to the fullest extent, we
cannot refrain from expressing at the same time our firm conviction that
the carnivorous quadrupeds possess in reality a better title to the place
which we have assigned them, than the Monkeys which we have displaced
to make room for them. The supposed transition from man, on which the
received arrangement is founded, has little to do with the question;
and it would surely require no great subtilty of argument to prove that
the Carnivora are more highly typical of the great class, of which they
form so important a part, than any other tribe whatever. But this is not
the proper place for entering into so abstract a question; to which we
have only referred _en passant_, for the sake of justifying ourselves
upon broader principles for a deviation from established custom, which
we should not have hesitated to adopt, in the present instance, on the
narrow ground of expedience alone. Before, however, we take leave of
it altogether, we cannot avoid asking, why, if the Monkeys are to take
precedence of the Carnivora among Mammalia, the analogous tribe of Birds,
the Pies and the Parrots, should not also rank above the ornithological
representatives of the beasts of prey, the towering Eagle and the
rapacious Vulture?
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