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A dunce who prided himself on his pedigree was said to resemble a potato, since the best part of him was underground. Such is not the opinion of Mr. Darwin, who remains firmly convinced that we all trace our ancestry to a monkey. By way of consolation for this somewhat humiliating assertion he brings forward, in his new volume on "The Descent of Man," some striking instances of apish sagacity and sense. In some respects, indeed, were we all to turn monkeys again there would be a perceptible improvement. Wild baboons are fond of beer, and when they drink too much they refresh themselves with the juice of lemons the next morning, but one monkey, having been once intoxicated with brandy, could never be induced to touch it again. In the question of temperance, then, the monkey has the advantage, while in other points he is at least a rival. The chimpanzee cracks his nuts with a stone, and the baboons turn the stones to a still more practical account by hurling them down on their enemies in fight, after the fashion of the Swiss at Morgarten. The orang outing can use the lever, and an ape of another kind is reported to have sung remarkably well, but our author tells us he once saw a baboon in the Zoological Gardens, who always got into a furious passion when the keeper took out a book and began to read it aloud. Perhaps he had once heard him read Mr. Darwin.