Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1896 — THE LION-MONKEY. [ARTICLE]

THE LION-MONKEY.

Beguiles His Master and Gains a Tem- ’* porary Freedom. The- silky marmoset, or lion monkey, is a very rare species, found only in the neighborhood of Cape Frio, just north of Rio de Janeiro. They are not much larger than a squirrel, and have beautiful, long, silky, bright, golden fur, like a child’s fair hair. Their popular name is derived from their being the very image of little lions, miniature mane and all. The specimen I opce had for a pet, like .most of his kind, was intensely nerVous —too much so to ever become very tame. I did not keep him in a cage, but encircled his body with a soft belt, to which a thin, light watch chain, not more than a half yard long, was attached. The other end of this was fastened to a slender ring, traveling freely up and down an upright pole six feet high, at the top, of which, was a long cross-bar, placed T-Wise; so that, as you will see, the monkey hud plenty of scope for exercise without much risk of getting entangled, 1 and yet was confind within a limited area. One morning I found his chain Snapped and him gone, and I had some little bother to find him and secure him again. I was rather surprised at this, as he had always seemed to approve of the ring-and-ehain arrangement, and never attempted to get away. The next morning the same thing happened, and the next, and I then became convinced that he must have been sorely -frightened during the night. : Seeking for a cause, I noticed that his tin of boiled rice was always emptied cleanly, and as the little rascal himself was too fond of banana and sapodillato eat much rice, I shrewdly suspected rats. * Accordingly the next night I baited a cage-trap’ with some salt fish—which is much more attractive than toasted cheese—and set it just in the line of route between the jalousie, through which I judged they must enter, and Leo’s stand. But the following morning a broken fragment of chain again dangled from the ring, the rice was all gone and the monkey was sitting sedately in the rattrap,where he had beguiled the hours of his captivity by eating up the salt fish, greatly to his subsequent derangement. —Golden Davs.