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Show 1 9 0 6 .] OF MONKEYS IN TIIE MENAGERIE. 567 cocious, but to what extent this was due to the greater solicitude of the mother in keeping the baby with her, either to protect it from the cold * or from the Monkeys in the adjoining cages, it is impossible to say. Certain it is, however, that long after the baby was able to crawl the mother habitually frustrated its efforts at independence by pulling it to her side before it could get out of arm's reach. The male took no share in nursing or tending to the young. He treated it with complete indifference, and with good-humoured tolerance allowed it to take the liberty later on of climbing over his back and pulling his hair. When sleeping, the parents usually sat front to front with the little one between them, completely concealed by their long and thick coats of hair. In addition to nursing and suckling the baby in the usual way, the mother kept it clean, as dogs and cats clean their puppies and kittens, namely by licking up the excrement and urine while being passed. It was amusing to see her every now and again seize the baby by the tail and inspect its hind-quarters for indications of excretion. I have never seen the young Macaques suck more than one teat at a time. In this they differ from the baby Vervet (Cerco-pithecus lalandii) born in the Gardens in 1893, which is alleged to have held both nipples in its mouth at once (P. Z. S. 1893, p. 615). They soon began to feed on their own account. When four weeks old the baby Rhesus x Common Macaque helped himself to his mother's bread and milk and at two months was trying, albeit ineffectually, to crack nuts. I did not see the young Japanese Macaque eat anything until six weeks old. At five months he was still being suckled. He was weaned when he was between seven and eight months old. A ge of M o n k e y s . I am not aware of any statistics as to longevity in Monkeys. It is interesting therefore to put on record the fact that Col. S. M. Benson kept, he informs me, a Rhesus Macaque alive for twenty-eight years. The animal ultimately died of heart disease, and was probably about twenty-nine years old at the time. Supplement by Dr. E. J. S t e e gm a n n I". My experience of birth amongst Monkeys is limited to one kind, the common Indian Rhesus, and the cases are few in number. All the females that gave birth to young ones were already pregnant when I bought them, and I have absolutely failed to * This Monkey, be it remembered, was born on Jan. 10 in an unwarmed open-air cage separated by wire partitions from cages to the right and left, containing Haboons and Monkeys of diverse species. The baby of the Rhesus, on the contrary, was born on April 27th in a warmed house, and two days afterwards was transienea with its mother to a cage boarded off from adjoining cages. + These notes were kindly compiled by Dr. Steegmann in reply to certain definite questions on matters about which my knowledge was defective or my observations wanted confirming. |