Part 16

Sir Thomas Dick Lauder records the adventures of a monkey in Morayshire, whose wanderings sadly alarmed the inhabitants who saw him, all unused as they were to the sight of such an exotic stranger.

"We knew a large monkey, which escaped from his chain, and was abroad in Morayshire for some eight or ten days. Wherever he appeared he spread terror among the peasantry. A poor fisherman on the banks of the Findhorn was sitting with his wife and family at their frugal meal, when a hairy little man, as they in their ignorance conceived him to be, appeared on the window sill and grinned, and chattered through the casement what seemed to them to be the most horrible incantations. Horror-struck, the poor people crowded together on their knees on the floor, and began to exorcise him with prayers most vehemently, until some external cause of alarm made their persecutor vanish. The neighbours found the family half dead with fear, and could with difficulty extract from them the cause. 'Oh! worthy neebours!' at last exclaimed the goodman with a groan, 'we ha'e seen the Enemy glowrin' at us through that vera wundow there. Lord keep us a'!!' He next alarmed a little hamlet near the hills; appearing and disappearing to various individuals in a most mysterious manner; till at last a clown, with a few grains of more courage than the rest, loaded his gun and put a sixpence into it, with the intention of stealing upon him as he sat most mysteriously chattering on the top of a cairn of stones, and then shooting him with silver, which is known never to fail in finishing the imps of the Evil One. And lucky indeed was it for pug that he chanced, through whim, to abscond from that quarter; for if he had not so disappeared, he might have died by the lead, if not by the silver. As it was, the bold peasant laid claim to the full glory of compelling this dreaded goblin to flee."

Sir Thomas Lauder kept several pets in his beautiful seat at the Grange, long occupied by the Messrs Dalgleish of Dreghorn Castle as a genteel boarding-school, and now by the Misses Mouatt as one for young ladies. We have often seen the tombstones to his dogs, which were buried to the south of that mansion, in which Principal Robertson the historian died, and where Lord Brougham, his relation, used to go when a boy at the High School.

THE FRENCH MARQUIS AND HIS MONKEY.

Dr John Moore, the father of General Moore, who fell at Corunna, in one of the graphic sketches of a Frenchman which he gives in his work on Italy, records a visit he paid to the Marquis de F---- at Besançon. After many questions, he says, "Before I could make any answer, I chanced to turn my eyes upon a person whom I had not before observed, who sat very gravely upon a chair in a corner of the room, with a large periwig in full dress upon his head. The marquis, seeing my surprise at the sight of this unknown person, after a very hearty fit of laughter, begged pardon for not having introduced me sooner to that gentleman (who was no other than a large monkey), and then told me, he had the honour of being attended by a physician, who had the reputation of possessing the greatest skill, and who certainly wore the largest periwigs of any doctor in the province. That one morning, while he was writing a prescription at his bedside, this same monkey had catched hold of his periwig by one of the knots, and instantly made the best of his way out at the window to the roof of a neighbouring house, from which post he could not be dislodged, till the doctor, having lost patience, had sent home for another wig, and never after could be prevailed on to accept of this, which had been so much disgraced. That, enfin, his valet, to whom the monkey belonged, had, ever since that adventure, obliged the culprit by way of punishment to sit quietly, for an hour every morning, with the periwig on his head.--Et pendant ces moments de tranquillité je suis honoré de la société du venerable personage. Then, addressing himself to the monkey, "Adieu, mon ami, pour aujourdhui--au plaisir de vous revoir;" and the servant immediately carried Monsieur le Médicin out of the room.

This is a most characteristic bit, which could scarcely have occurred out of France, where monkeys and dogs are petted as we never saw them petted elsewhere. These things were so when we knew Paris under Louis-Philippe. Frenchmen, surely, have not much changed under Louis Napoleon.

THE MANDRILL AND GEORGE THE FOURTH.

One of the attractive sights of Mr Cross's menagerie, some forty years or so ago, was a full-grown baboon, to which had been given the name of "Happy Jerry." He was conspicuous from the finely-coloured rib-like ridges on each side of his cheeks, the clear blue and scarlet hue of which, on such a hideous long face and muzzle, with its small, deeply-sunk malicious eyes, and projecting brow and cheeks, seemed almost as if beauty and bestiality were here combined. But Jerry had a habit which would have made Father Matthew loathe him and those who encouraged him. He had been taught to sit in an armchair and to drink porter out of a pot, like a thirsty brickmaker; and, as an addition to his accomplishments, he could also smoke a pipe, like a trained pupil of Sir Walter Raleigh. This rib-nosed baboon, or mandrill, as he is often called, obtained great renown; and among other distinguished personages who wished to see him was his late majesty King George the Fourth. As that king seldom during his reign frequented places of public resort, Mr Cross was invited to bring Jerry to Windsor or Brighton, to display the talents of his redoubtable baboon. I have heard Mr Cross say, that the king placed his hands on the arm of one of the ladies of the Court, at which Jerry began to show such unmistakable signs of ferocity, that the mild, kind menagerist was glad to get Jerry removed, or at least the king and his courtiers to withdraw. He showed his great teeth and grinned and growled, as a baboon in a rage is apt to do. Jerry was a powerful beast, especially in his fore-legs or arms. When he died, Mr Cross presented his skin to the British Museum, where it has been long preserved. The mandrill is a native of West Africa, where he is much dreaded by the negroes.

In Cross's menagerie at Walworth, nearly twenty years ago, there was generally a fine mandrill. We remember the sulky ferocity of that restless eye. How angry the mild menagerist used to be at the ladies in the monkey-room with their parasols! These appendages were the feelers with which some of the softer sex used to touch Cross's monkeys, and, as the old gentleman used to insist, helped to kill them. Parasols were freely used to touch the boas and other snakes feeding in the same warm room. No doubt a boa-constrictor could not live comfortably if his soft, muscular sides got fifty pokes a day from as many sticks or parasols. Edward Cross, mild, gentle, gentlemanly, Prince of show-keepers, used to be very indignant at the inquisitorial desire possessed, especially by some of the fairer sex, to try the relative hardness and softness of serpents and monkeys, and other mammals and creatures. This story of the mandrill may excuse this pendant of an episode.

THE YOUNG LADY'S PET MONKEY AND HER PARROT.

Horace Walpole tells an anecdote of a fine young French lady, a Madame de Choiseul. She longed for a parrot that should be a miracle of eloquence. A parrot was soon found for her in Paris. She also became enamoured of General Jacko, a celebrated monkey, at Astley's. But the possessor was so exorbitant in his demand for Jacko, that the General did not change proprietors. Another monkey was soon heard of, who had been brought up by a cook in a kitchen, where he had learned to pluck fowls with inimitable dexterity. This accomplished pet was bought and presented to Madame, who accepted him. The first time she went out, the two animals were locked up in her bed-chamber. When the lady returned, the monkey was alone to be seen. Search, was made for Pretty Poll, and to her horror she was found at last under bed, shivering and cowering, and without a feather. It seems that the two pets had been presented by rival lovers of Madame. Poll's presenter concluded that his rival had given the monkey with that very view, challenged him; they fought, and both were wounded: and a heroic adventure it was!

MONKEYS POOR RELATIONS.

One of Luttrell's sayings, recorded by Sydney Smith, was,--

"I hate the sight of monkeys, they remind me so of poor relations." Here follows a fine passage of Sydney Smith, which he might have written after hearing the lectures of Professor Huxley. "I confess I feel myself so much at my ease about the superiority of mankind,--I have such a marked and decided contempt for the understanding of every baboon I have yet seen,--I feel so sure that the blue ape without a tail will never rival us in poetry, painting, and music,--that I see no reason whatever why justice may not be done to the few fragments of soul, and tatters of understanding, which they may really possess. I have sometimes, perhaps, felt a little uneasy at Exeter 'Change, from contrasting the monkeys with the 'prentice boys who are teasing them; but a few pages of Locke, or a few lines of Milton, have always restored my tranquillity, and convinced me that the superiority of man had nothing to fear."

MRS COLIN MACKENZIE OBSERVES APES AT SIMLA.

The monkey she alludes to seems to be the Semnopithecus Entellus, a black-faced, light-haired monkey, with long legs and tail, much venerated by the Hindoos.

"Mrs L. and I were very much amused, early this morning (July 5), by watching numbers of huge apes, the size of human beings, with white hair all round their faces, and down their backs and chests, who were disporting themselves and feeding on the green leaves, on the sides of the precipice close to the house. Many of them had one or two little ones--the most amusing, indefatigable little creatures imaginable--who were incessantly running up small trees, jumping down again, and performing all sorts of antics, till one felt quite wearied with their perpetual activity. When the mother wished to fly, she clutched the little one under her arm, where, clinging round her body with all its arms, it remained in safety, while she made leaps of from thirty to forty feet, and ran at a most astonishing rate down the khad, catching at any tree or twig that offered itself to any one of her four arms. There were two old grave apes of enormous size sitting together on the branch of a tree, and deliberately catching the fleas in each other's shaggy coats. The patient sat perfectly still, while his brother ape divided and thoroughly searched his beard and hair, lifted up one arm and then the other, and turned him round as he thought fit; and then the patient undertook to perform the same office for his friend."

THE AYE-AYE (Chiromys Madagascariensis).

Zoologists used to know a very curious animal from Madagascar, by name, or by an indifferent specimen preserved in the Paris Museum. Sonnerat, the naturalist, obtained it from that great island so well known to geographical boys in former days by its being, so they were told, the largest island in the world. This strange quadruped was named by a word which meant "handed-mouse," for such is the signification of chiromys, or cheiromys, as it used to be spelled. This creature, when its history was better known, was believed to be not far removed in the system from the lemurs and loris. Its soft fur, long tail, large eyes, and other features and habits connected it with these quadrumana, while its rodent dentition seemed to refer it to the group containing our squirrels, hares, and mice. It has been the subject of a profound memoir by Professor Owen, our greatest comparative anatomist; and I remember, with pleasure, the last time I saw him at the Museum he was engaged in its dissection. I may here refer to one of the Professor's lighter productions--a lecture at Exeter Hall on some instances of the "power of God as manifested in His animal creation"--for a very nice notice of this curious quadruped. In one of the French journals, there was an excellent account given of the peculiar habits of the little nocturnal creature. In those tropical countries the trees are tenanted by countless varieties of created things. Their wood affords rich feeding to the large, fat, pulpy grubs of beetles of the families Buprestidæ, Dynastidæ, Passalidæ, and, above all, that glorious group the Longicornia. These beetles worm their way into the wood, making often long tunnels, feeding as they work, and leaving their ejecta in the shape of agglomerated sawdust. It is into the long holes drilled by these beetles that the Aye-Aye searches with his long fingers, one of which, on the fore-hand, is specially thin, slender, and skeleton-like. It looks like the tool of some lock-picker. Our large-eyed little friend, like the burglar, comes out at night and finds these holes on the trees where he slept during the day. His sensitive thin ears, made to hear every scratch, can detect the rasping of the retired grub, feasting in apparent security below. Naturalists sometimes hear at night, so Samouelle once told me, the grubs of moths munching the dewy leaves. Our aye-aye is no collector, but he has eyes, ears, and fingers too, that see, hear, and get larvæ that, when grown and changed into beetles, are the valued prizes of entomologists. Into that tunnelled hole he inserts his long finger, and squash it goes into a large, pulpy, fat, sweet grub. It takes but a moment to draw it out; and if it be a pupa near the bark, so much the better for the aye-aye, so much the worse for the beetle or cossus. I might dilate on this subject, but prefer referring the reader to Professor Owen's memoir, and to his lecture. The aye-aye, in every point of its structure, like every created thing, is full of design. Its curious fingers, especially the skeleton-like chopstick of a digit referred to, attract especial notice, from their evident adaptation to the condition of its situation and existence, as one of the works of an omnipotent and beneficent Creator.

FOOTNOTES:

The Durian, a peculiarly favourite fruit in several of the Eastern Islands.

Mr Wolf's drawing was taken from a chimpanzee. Mr Waterton's young chimpanzee was in reality a small-eared gorilla. The ears of the chimpanzee are large.

Written in 1861. Skins and skeletons of the gorilla are to be found now in many museums.

For Jan. 1860, vol. iii., p. 177.

Monkeys are very liable to lung diseases in this climate, and all menagerie keepers are aware of the bad effects of the winter on these denizens of a warm climate.

See "Lives of the Lindsays," by Lord Lindsay, vol. iii., pp. 371-476.

At Paradise. She describes some plants, one, evidently a Stapelia, is a fine large star-plant, yellow and spotted like the skin of a leopard, over which there grows a crop of glossy brown hair, at once handsome and horrible; it crawls flat on the ground, and its leaves are thick and fat (p. 407).

"Conversations of Lord Byron" (p. 9).