Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

FB, pseud.  [Frank Bellew] *

Subjects:

Zoology, Animal Behaviour, Hunting, Collecting, Human Species, Evolution, Time, Race, Cultural Geography

    The initial letter of the text ('S') forms part of an illustration in which a giraffe has curled its head under its body and is confronting an African warrior. The text discusses Richard Owen's lecture at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science on the simians introduced into Britain by Paul B Du Chaillu (a version of which was published as Owen 1862). Considers Owen's observation of the grey hairs on ageing chimpanzees to be both 'a comfort to man' and 'another proof' of 'how closely the two races [humans and chimpanzees] are allied'. The narrator relates first-hand observations of ageing monkeys, which are 'very unpleasant-looking' and have a tendency to 'idle chatter'. Notes that monkeys, unlike white humans, 'acquire a leaden black hue by age', and suggests that were white people so affected, they might suffer enslavement in America. Observes that some people grow blacker internally as they age. Contemplates the 'comical' scene of a monkey looking at himself in a mirror and how its sense of its ageing would increase the volume of cosmetics it used.