Volume 1

Cassell's popular natural history.

Date:
[1865-1866]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cassell's popular natural history. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    animals are, they substitute for the water a solution of glue; they then leave the spot, when the apt's are sure to descend from the trees, and wash themselves as they had observed the men do ; their eyelashes are consequently glued together, they are rendered unable to escape from their enemies, and are thus easily captured. When some men of science were engaged in South America making observations-on the figure of the earth, they were greatly annoyed by the domesticated apes, which were very numerous, looking through their telescopes, planting signals, running to the pendulum they used, taking their pens and trying to write : in a word, imitating every action as soon as they could after it was observed. The smallpox having spread fearfully amongst the monkeys of South America, Dr. Pinckard, Secretary to the Bloomsbury-street Vaccination Society, was struck by the idea of an-esting its further progress. Vaccination was, of course, to be the means of staying the plague, and his scheme for its introduction was singularly ingenious. He bound two or three boys hand and foot, and then vacci- nated them, in the presence of an old monkey, who was observed to be closely attentive to his proceedings. He then left him alone with a young monkey, with some of the matter on the table, and beside it a lancet guarded that it might not cut too deep, by a projecting piece of steel, on the same principle as ivory cucumber slices are made, and on the principle also adopted in what are called “ hunting razors.” The doctor witnessed the result from a neighbouring room : the old monkey threw the young one down, bound him without delay, and vaccinated him with all the skill of a professor. “ The usual effects,” says Mr. Rose, “ followed. Other steady monkeys were thus instructed in the art, after having been themselves pi’eviously inoculated ; and several are, it is said, now being sent out to South America, provided with all necessary means for the beneficial infection. May the attempt succeed, and men and monkeys, throughout that extensive continent, have cause to bless the name of England ! ” Such an aspiration was far more reasonable than many would imagine. Harris relates that the ancient Indians found a way of making such creatures, by nature so active, not merely quiet but useful. In such places as produced pepper and cocoa trees, they were accustomed, in sight of the monkeys, to cut the highest branches within their reach, and lay them regularly on the ground. This they did in the morning, and then leaving the place, these natural mimics pulled all the fruit that was out of man’s reach and laid it in the same order on the ground, when the Indians, coming in the night, found their harvest gathered to their hands and carried it away. Stedman, in his very entertaining account of Surinam, tells us, that, being placed in command of a flotilla of barges in an inland part of a river, he was accustomed, at rising, to wash himself, and clean his teeth upon deck, dipping his sponge and tooth-brush for this purpose in water. He had pursued this practice for a few days, when he perceived, to his surprise, a monkey engaged in the same manoeuvre, and, after a little longer period, he found that the fashion had been universally adopted, and that hundreds of monkeys every morning lined the shore, who were to be seen washing or cleaning their teeth with small sticks of willow, which they used up and down, pr right and left, as the position of the teeth required. Other four-handed creatures have the same power, and we shall give, when speaking of them, many amusing stories. There have been, unhappily, both writers and travellers too much disposed to credulity, so fasci- nated by the marvellous, or designedly propagating falsehoods, who have described “ men with long tails, and covered with yellowish hair, navigating the ocean in boats, and bartering parrots in exchange for ironand “ long-armed, hairy men,” who played the part of bandits, and whose language was a hissing sound. “The province ofFohier,” says Nieuhoff, “hath an animal perfectly resembling man, but longer armed, and hairy all over, called Fesse; most swift and greedy after human flesh, who, that he may better take his prey, feigneth laughter, and while the person stands listening, seizetli upon him.” Nor have there been wanting men gravely to affirm that the human race belong to the same species as the monkey tribes; and that the distinction between them has arisen only from the different physical or moral agencies to which they have been subjected. Such was the opinion of Lord Monboddo, one of the Judges of the Court of Session in Scotland. Estimable in the various relations of life, and also, for his high judicial character, he was at the same time strangely credulous, while he manifested a strong preference for the virtues and happiness, imaginary as they are, of the savage state. Men of very different order have been betrayed into great errors, when speculating on the powers