Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1900 — Catching Monkeys. [ARTICLE]

Catching Monkeys.

The fondness of monkeys for mischief makes them the ready dupes of a shrewder intel’igence. The manner of entrapping them is explained by a South American writer, who is familiar with life In to wn and in forest throughout the equalorial belt. One of t’-e-simplest methods consists in cutting a number of holes in a gourd, making them barely large enough to admit the monkey’s hand. The gourd, thus prepared, is filled with corn and secured to vhe trunk of a tree. Then it is shaken violently, so as to attract the attention of the monkeys. A few grains of corn are scattered in the neighborhood of the trap. The gourd is the dinner bell of the monkeys. They no sooner hear the wellknowy sound than they descend from their serial homes, and each in turn, seizing the gourd, grasps through one of tb£ holes a handful of corn. Then they struggle i* vain to withdraw their hands without • elinquishing the prize. At this critical moment the concealed autkor of their urisliap suddenly makes his appearance, *.ud tying their hands, carries them off to his cabin in the weyds.