The Monkey
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Monkeys and men.
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Tree animals.
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Feed on nuts and fruit.
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Very curious.
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Great mimics.
Monkeys are interesting because, of all animals, they are most like men. They are like men in shape; the chief difference being that monkeys have long tails, and instead of two hands and two feet, they have four hands. But their heads and faces are like those of men, and they often behave like men, too. In fact, learned people tell us that men and monkeys are cousins, for they both came from one common forefather.
Monkeys are tree animals. As they have four hands, they can climb trees very easily and quickly. Of course, they often come down to the ground, but they live most of the time in the trees. And they can jump from one tree to another; and in the forest, they will travel, and travel quickly, over the branches of the trees for miles without once coming down to the ground. They also sleep at night high up in the trees.
Monkeys feed mostly on nuts, berries, and fruit, which they other from the trees. They often do a lot of damage in Orchards by stealing and spoiling the fruit when it is ripe.
Monkeys are very curious. Anything new or strange attracts their attention at once. They want to know all about it. Because of this, they can often be caught easily in traps. A looking glass is a great puzzle to the monkey. It thinks when it sees its face in the glass that it is another monkey, and cannot understand why it cannot catch it when it looks behind the looking-glass.
They are also great mimics; that is, they like to copy what they see men do. So tame monkeys can easily be taught all kinds of funny tricks. If one is dressed up like a man, it will walk about very proudly, carrying a walking stick and smoking a cigarette; or will sit in a chair pretending to read a newspaper. In fact, the name of one kind of monkey, the ape, has become a verb meaning to copy; so that when we say, heaped the manners of a gentleman, we mean he copied the manners of a gentleman.
