PDF - Wallace Online

TROPICAL NATUREMAMMALIAMonkeysThe highestclass of animals, the Mammalia, althoughsufficiently abundant in all equatorial lands, are thosewhich are least seen by the traveller. There is, in fact,only one group the monkeys which are at the same timepre-eminently tropical, and which make themselves perceivedas one of the aspects of tropical nature. They are to be metwith in all the greatcontinents and larger islands, exceptAustralia, New Guinea, and Madagascar, though the latter islandpossesses the lower allied form of Lemurs and; they neverfail to impress the observer with a sense of the exuberantvitality of the tropics. They are pre-eminently arboreal intheir mode of life, and are consequently most abundant andvaried where vegetation reaches its maximum development.In the East we find that maximum in Borneo, and in theWest African forests ;while in the West the great forestplain of the Amazon stands pre-eminent. It is near theequator only that the great Anthropoid apes, the gorilla,chimpanzee, and orang-utan are found, and they may be metwith by any persevering explorer of the jungle. The gibbons,or long-armed apes, have a wider range in the Asiatic continentand in Malaya, and they are more abundant both inspecies and individuals. Their plaintive howling notes mayoften be heard in the forests, and they are constantly to beseen sporting at the summits of the loftiest trees, swingingsuspended by their long arms, or bounding from tree to treewith incredible agility. They pass through the forest at aheight of a hundred feet or more, as rapidly as a deer willtravel along the ground beneath them. Other monkeys ofvarious kinds are more abundant and usually less shy and in;places where firearms are not much used they will approachthe houses and gambol in the trees undisturbed by theapproach of man. The most remarkable of the tailed monkeysof the East is the proboscis monkey of Borneo, whose longfleshy nose gives it an aspect very different from that of mostof its allies.In tropical America monkeys are even more abundantthan in the East, and they present many interesting pecu-