THE MARMOSET.
[To TR. EDITOR 08 TIER SPECTATOR.”]
S1E,`•May I again, through the medium of your widely read paper, say a few words in favour of the thousands of little helpless marmosets which are annually taken from their tropical native land to die in colder climates ?
Having kept these beautiful little creatures through several winters, and closely observed them. I have come to the concla- that one reason of the mortality amongst them in their foreign surroundings is that in the anxiety to keep them sufficiently warm, they are kept too much without the fresh air to which they have been used, and which they evidently delight in and pine for. The one I now have had for two winters is in perfect health and condition. This very day he frisked round the garden, in spite of frost on the ground, chirruping in the sunshine. Throughout this severe winter he has been out of doors on each sunny day for a short time. Within doors, the temperature has been kept at about 600 or 620 for him as far as possible, night and day. A gas. burner left alight at night in a previously warmed room is suffi- cient for this, and Marmie ' sleeps in a box-cage, furnished with plenty of cotton-wool and light flannel wraps, as well as a small flannel-covered wool-mattress, with which he entirely blocks the entrance to his nest after he gets in for the night, thus effectually excluding all draughts. He accepts as his bedfellow, with decided approbation, and generally kissing it and whistling to it, a furry monkey-doll, which is his constant plaything during the day, and which doubtless helps to keep him warm. The other difficulty—of diet—has been got over by supplying him with common garden-snails—which he requires to have neatly and carefully cracked for him—since other insect food has been unattainable. He eats two or three of these daring the day, or, at least, portions of them. It is the white muscle that he chiefly cares for, the other parts being apparently less digestible. With the addition of gum.arabic, prickly.pears, bananas, angelica, and the juice of stewed apples, together with fresh pure water and a little cream, he has "eked out an existence." The quantity taken of any food is infinitesimally small ; but he is well and strong and active, intensely pretty and amusing, and apparently happy and content ; although, could he speak so as to be generally understood, he would certainly explain that he prefers the season when spiders and flies, beetles and grubs, and young green peas and beans, are to be had in plenty, and when the temperature within and without is that of a genial summer heat. —I am, Sir, &a.,
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