Tropical nature, and other essaysWallace, Alfred Russel
History
Tropical nature, and other essays
Wallace, Alfred Russel
Ecology -- Tropics; Natural history -- Tropics; Tropics
pass through the forest at a height of a hundred feet or more, as
rapidly as a deer will travel along the ground beneath them. Other
monkeys of various kinds are more abundant and usually less shy;
and in places where fire-arms are not much used they will approach
the houses and gambol in the trees undisturbed by the approach of
man. The most remarkable of the tailed monkeys of the East is the
proboscis monkey of Borneo, whose long fleshy nose gives it an
aspect very different from that of most of its allies.
In tropical America monkeys are even more abundant than in the
East, and they present many interesting peculiarities. They differ
somewhat in dentition and in other structural features from all
Old World apes, and a considerable number of them have prehensile
tails, a peculiarity never found elsewhere. In the howlers and the
spider monkeys the tail is very long and powerful, and by twisting
the extremity round a branch the animal can hang suspended as easily
as other monkeys can by their hands. It is, in fact, a fifth hand,
and is constantly used to pick up small objects from the ground.
The most remarkable of the American monkeys are the howlers, whose
tremendous roaring exceeds that of the lion or the bull, and is to
be heard frequently at morning and evening in the primeval forests.
The sound is produced by means of a large, thin, bony vessel in
the throat, into which air is forced; and it is very remarkable
that this one group of monkeys should possess an organ not found
in any other monkey or even in any other mammal, apparently for
no other purpose than to be able to make a louder noise than the
rest. The only other monkeys worthy of special attention are the
marmosets, beautiful little creatures with crests, whiskers, or
manes; in outward form resembling squirrels, but with a very small
monkey-like face. They are either black, brown, reddish, or nearly
white in colour, and are the smallest of the monkey tribe, some of
them being only about six inches long exclusive of the tail.
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