American museums, I could rarely locate a troop save by the tree-
top talk of its members.

But all this was only childish prattle in comparison with the
daily performances of the big white-handed, and the black hoolock
gibbons, now and for several years past residing in our Primate
House. Every morning, and perhaps a dozen times during the day,
those three gibbons go on a vocal rampage and utter prolonged and
ear-splitting cries and shrieks that make the welkin ring. The
shrieking chorus is usually prolonged until it becomes tiresome to
the monkeys. In all our ape and monkey experience we never have
known its equal save in the vocal performances of Boma, our big
adult male chimpanzee, the husband of Suzette.

A baboon emits occasionally, and without any warning, a fearful
explosive bark, or roar, that to visitors is as startling as the
report of a gun. The commonest expressions are "Wah!" and
"_Wah'_-hoo!", and the visitor who can hear it close at hand
without jumping has good nerves.

The big and solemn long-nosed monkey of Borneo (_Nasalis
larvatus_) utters in his native tree-top (overhanging water), a
cry like the resonant "honk" of a saxophone. He says plainly, "Kee
honk," and all that I could make of its meaning was that it is
used as the equivalent of "All's well."

Of all the monkeys that I have ever known, either wild or in
captivity, the red howlers of the Orinoco, in Venezuela, have the
most remarkable voices, and make the most remarkable use of them.
The hyoid cartilage is expanded,--for Nature's own particular