on the ground. Usually he walks on the outside edges of the palms with the fingers and thumbs curled in. This gives him a funny, bow-legged look. But just watch him on a tree or a perch, or clinging to the wires of his cage. He's as much at home in a tree as a bird or a squirrel.
Even if a monkey cannot talk, he can tell you very plainly where he lived when he was at home—that is, whether he is an Old World monkey from over the ocean, or a New World monkey from South America. The monkeys in a Zoo always come to the netting when visitors appear, for they are very curious and want to see everything that is going on. Besides, they have learned that some 'specially friendly little boys and girls carry bags of peanuts. Select any little fellow who comes up to you and give him peanuts, one at a time, as fast as he can take them. If he is an Old World monkey he will stow those nuts away in cheek pouches like a squirrel. He can put a surprising number away, for those pouches stretch and stretch like little rubber balloons. Look at him carefully. His nose, of course, is flat, but the two holes are near together. And when he goes up to a bar to eat his nuts, he does not use his tail in climbing.
A South American monkey's nostrils are far apart. He has no cheek pouches, but heaps as many nuts as he can carry in his two front arms, as you carry packages. But he can keep other monkeys from taking his nuts when he climbs, for he uses his long, curly-tipped tail for a fifth hand. With five hands for grasping the South American monkey is a wonderful trapeze performer. The tree-squirrel climbs faster, the flying squirrel leaps farther, the bat clings better with his wing-hooks, but no other animal can climb, leap and swing, and go across a wide forest, forty feet from the ground without once coming to the earth. The acrobat of the animal world, he seems to be made up of wire springs that are tireless.
The South American monkey that you will see oftenest with the organ man is a small, rusty brown animal about as big as a toy terrier. He has a curved hair-covered tail, good thumbs, a rather pleasant whistling chatter, and a care-worn anxious face, as if he expected nothing in life but bad news. He is bright and obedient, so he soon learns his tricks and performs them willingly. He likes to ride on a dog's back, his master's shoulder or the barrel organ. Another favorite of the organ man's is the Capuchin monkey. You may know him by the queer way in which the hair grows around his face like a hood or Capuchin monk's cowl.
