The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations
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Title: The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations
Author: William T. Hornaday
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Most recently updated: December 29, 2020
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINDS AND MANNERS OF WILD ANIMALS: A BOOK OF PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS ***
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[Illustration with caption: OVERPOWERING CURIOSITY OF A MOUNTAIN SHEEP
This "lava ram" stood thus on a lava crest in the Pinacate Mountains
for about twenty minutes, gazing spellbound at two men and a pack mule.
(See page 149)]
THE MINDS AND MANNERS OF WILD ANIMALS
A BOOK OF PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS
BY WILLIAM T. HORNADAY, Sc.D., A.M. DIRECTOR OF THE NEW YORK
ZOOLOGICAL PARK. AUTHOR OF "THE AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY," "TWO
YEARS IN THE JUNGLE," "CAMP FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES," "OUR
VANISHING WILD LIFE," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
_The wild animal must think, or die._* * * * *
_"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."_
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY WILLIAM T. HORNADAY
Printed in the United States of America
_The right of translation is reserved_
Published May, 1922
TO THE OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL PARK, WHOSE SAFETY
DEPENDS UPON THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF THE MINDS OF WILD ANIMALS, THIS VOLUME
IS DEDICATED AS A TOKEN OF APPRECIATION AND REGARD
CONTENTS
I. A SURVEY OF THE FIELD
I. THE LAY OF THE LAND
II. WILD ANIMAL TEMPERAMENT & INDIVIDUALITY
III. THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS
IV. THE MOST INTELLIGENT ANIMALS
V. THE RIGHTS OF WILD ANIMALS
II. MENTAL TRAITS OF WILD ANIMALS
VI. THE BRIGHTEST MINDS AMONG ANIMALS
VII. KEEN BIRDS AND DULL MEN
VIII. THE MENTAL STATUS OF THE ORANG-UTAN
IX. THE MAN-LIKENESS OF THE CHIMPANZEE
X. THE TRUE MENTAL STATUS OF THE GORILLA
XI. THE MIND OF THE ELEPHANT
XII. THE MENTAL AND MORAL TRAITS OF BEARS
XIII. MENTAL TRAITS OF A FEW RUMINANTS
XIV. MENTAL TRAITS OF A FEW RODENTS
XV. THE MENTAL TRAITS OF BIRDS
XVI. THE WISDOM OF THE SERPENT
XVII. THE TRAINING OF WILD ANIMALS
III. THE HIGHER PASSIONS
XVIII. THE MORALS OF WILD ANIMALS
XIX. THE LAWS OF THE FLOCKS AND HERDS
XX. PLAYS AND PASTIMES OF WILD ANIMALS
XXI. COURAGE IN WILD ANIMALS
IV. THE BASER PASSIONS
XXII. FEAR AS A RULING PASSION
XXIII. FIGHTING AMONG WILD ANIMALS
XXIV. WILD ANIMAL CRIMINALS AND CRIME
XXV. FIGHTING WITH WILD ANIMALS
THE CURTAIN.
PREFACE
During these days of ceaseless conflict, anxiety and unrest among
men, when at times it begins to look as if "the Caucasian" really is
"played out," perhaps the English-reading world will turn with a sigh
of relief to the contemplation of wild animals. At all events, the
author has found this diversion in his favorite field mentally
agreeable and refreshing.
In comparison with some of the alleged men who now are cursing this
earth by their baneful presence, the so-called "lower animals" do not
seem so very "low" after all! As a friend of the animals, this is a
very proper time in which to compare them with men. Furthermore, if
thinking men and women desire to know the leading facts concerning the
intelligence of wild animals, it will be well to consider them now,
before the bravest and the best of the wild creatures of the earth go
down and out under the merciless and inexorable steam roller that we
call Civilization.
The intelligence and the ways of wild animals are large subjects.
Concerning them I do not offer this volume as an all-in-all production.
Out of the great mass of interesting things that might
have been included, I have endeavored to select and set forth only
enough to make a good series of sample exhibits, without involving the
general reader in a hopelessly large collection of details. The most
serious question has been: What shall be left out?
Mr. A. R. Spofford, first Librarian of Congress, used to declare that
"Books are made from books"; but I call the reader to bear witness that
this volume is not a mass of quotations. A quoted authority often can
be disputed, and for this reason the author has found considerable
satisfaction in relying chiefly upon his own testimony.
Because I always desire to know the _opinions_ of men who are
writing upon their own observations, I have felt free to express my own
conclusions regarding the many phases of animal intelligence as their
manifestation has impressed me in close-up observations.
I have purposely avoided all temptations to discuss the minds and
manners of domestic animals, partly because that is by itself a large
subject, and partly because their minds have been so greatly influenced
by long and close association with man. The domestic mammals and birds
deserve independent treatment.
A great many stories of occurrences have been written into this
volume, for the purpose of giving the reader all the facts in
order that he may form his own opinions of the animal mentality
displayed.
Most sincerely do I wish that the boys and girls of America, and of the
whole world, may be induced to believe that _the most interesting
thing about a wild animal is its mind and its reasoning,_ and that a
dead animal is only a poor decaying thing. If the feet of the young men
would run more to seeing and studying the wild creatures and less to
the killing of them, some of the world's valuable species might escape
being swept away tomorrow, or the day after.
The author gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Munsey's
Magazine, McClure's Magazine and the Sunday Magazine Syndicate for
permission to copy herein various portions of his chapters from those
publications.
W. T. H.
The Anchorage, Stamford, Conn. December 19, 1921.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Overpowering Curiosity of a Mountain Sheep
Christmas at the Primates' House
The Trap-Door Spider's Door and Burrow
Hanging Nest of the Baltimore Oriole Great
Hanging Nests of the Crested Cacique
"Rajah," the Actor Orang-Utan
Thumb-Print of an Orang-Utan
The Lever That Our Orang-Utan Invented
Portrait of a High-Caste Chimpanzee
The Gorilla With the Wonderful Mind
Tame Elephants Assisting in Tying a Wild Captive
Wild Bears Quickly Recognize
Protection Alaskan Brown Bear,
"Ivan," Begging for Food
The Mystery of Death
The Steady-Nerved and Courageous Mountain Goat
Fortress of an Arizona Pack-Rat
Wild Chipmunks Respond to Man's Protection
An Opossum Feigning Death
Migration of the Golden Plover. (Map)
Remarkable Village Nests of the Sociable Weaver Bird
Spotted Bower-Bird, at Work on Its Unfinished Bower Hawk-Proof
Nest of a Cactus Wren
A Peace Conference With an Arizona Rattlesnake
Work Elephant Dragging a Hewn Timber The Wrestling Bear,
"Christian," and His Partner
Adult Bears at Play
Primitive Penguins on the Antarctic Continent, Unafraid of Man
Richard W. Rock and His Buffalo Murderer
"Black Beauty" Murdering "Apache"
THE MINDS AND MANNERS OF WILD ANIMALS
MAN AND THE WILD ANIMALS
If every man devoted to his affairs, and to the affairs of his
city and state, the same measure of intelligence and honest industry
that every warm-blooded wild animal devotes to its affairs, the people
of this world would abound in good health, prosperity, peace and
happiness.
To assume that every wild beast and bird is a sacred creature,
peacefully dwelling in an earthly paradise, is a mistake. They
have their wisdom and their folly, their joys and their sorrows,
their trials and tribulations.
As the alleged lord of creation, it is man's duty to know the wild
animals truly as they are, in order to enjoy them to the utmost, to
utilize them sensibly and fairly, and to give them a square deal.
I. A SURVEY OF THE FIELD
I
THE LAY OF THE LAND
There is a vast field of fascinating human interest, lying only just
outside our doors, which as yet has been but little explored. It is the
Field of Animal Intelligence.
Of all the kinds of interest attaching to the study of the world's
wild animals, there are none that surpass the study of their minds,
their morals, and the acts that they perform as the results of their
mental processes.
In these pages, the term "animal" is not used in its most common
and most restricted sense. It is intended to apply not only to
quadrupeds, but also to all the vertebrate forms,--mammals,
birds, reptiles, amphibians and fishes.
For observation and study, the whole vast world of living
creatures is ours, throughout all zones and all lands. It is not
ours to flout, to abuse, or to exterminate as we please. While for
practical reasons we do not here address ourselves to the
invertebrates, nor even to the sea-rovers, we can not keep them
out of the background of our thoughts. The living world is so vast
and so varied, so beautiful and so ugly, so delightful and so
terrible, so interesting and so commonplace, that each step we
make through it reveals things different and previously unknown.
The Frame of Mind. To the inquirer who enters the field of animal
thought with an open mind, and free from the trammels of egotism
and fear regarding man's place in nature, this study will prove an
endless succession of surprises and delights. In behalf of the
utmost tale of results, the inquirer should summon to his aid his
rules of evidence, his common sense, his love of fair play, and
the inexorable logic of his youthful geometry.
And now let us clear away a few weeds from the entrance to our
field, and reveal its cornerstones and boundary lines. To a
correct understanding of any subject a correct point of view is
absolutely essential.
In a commonplace and desultory way man has been mildly interested
in the intelligence of animals for at least 30,000 years. The Cro-
Magnons of that far time possessed real artistic talent, and on
the smooth stone walls and ceilings of the caves of France they
drew many wonderful pictures of mammoths, European bison, wild
cattle, rhinoceroses and other animals of their period. Ever since
man took unto himself certain tractable wild animals, and made
perpetual thralls of the horse, the dog, the cat, the cattle,
sheep, goats and swine, he has noted their intelligent ways. Ever
since the first caveman began to hunt wild beasts and slay them
with clubs and stones, the two warring forces have been interested
in each other, but for about 25,000 years I think that the wild
beasts knew about as much of man's intelligence as men knew of
theirs.
I leave to those who are interested in history the task of
revealing the date, or the period, when scholarly men first began
to pay serious attention to the animal mind.
In 1895 when Mr. George J. Romanes, of London, published his
excellent work on "Animal Intelligence," on one of its first pages
he blithely brushed aside as of little account all the
observations, articles and papers on his subject that had been
published previous to that time. Now mark how swiftly history can
repeat itself, and also bring retribution.
In 1910 there arose in the United States of America a group of
professional college-and-university animal psychologists who set
up the study of "animal behavior." They did this so seriously, and
so determinedly, that one of the first acts of two of them
consisted in joyously brushing aside as of no account whatever,
and quite beneath serious consideration, everything that had been
seen, done and said previous to the rise of their group, and the
laboratory Problem Box. In view of what this group has
accomplished since 1910, with their "problem boxes," their "mazes"
and their millions of "trials by error," expressed in solid pages
of figures, the world of animal lovers is entitled to smile
tolerantly upon the cheerful assumptions of ten years ago.
But let it not at any time be assumed that we are destitute of
problem boxes; for the author has two of his own! One is called
the Great Outdoors, and the other is named the New York Zoological
Park. The first has been in use sixty years, the latter twenty-two
years. Both are today in good working order, but the former is not
quite as good as new.
A Preachment to the Student. In studying the wild-animal mind,
the boundary line between Reality and Dreamland is mighty easy to
cross. He who easily yields to seductive reasoning, and the call
of the wild imagination, soon will become a dreamer of dreams and
a seer of visions of things that never occurred. The temptation to
place upon the simple acts of animals the most complex and far-
fetched interpretations is a trap ever ready for the feet of the
unwary. It is better to see nothing than to see a lot of things
that are not true.
In the study of animals, we have long insisted that _to the open
eye and the thinking brain, truth is stranger than fiction._
But Truth does not always wear her heart upon her sleeve for
zanies to peck at. Unfortunately there are millions of men who go
through the world looking at animals, but not seeing them.
Beware of setting up for wild animals impossible mental and moral
standards. The student must not deceive himself by overestimating
mental values. If an estimate must be made, make it under the mark
of truth rather than above it. While avoiding the folly of
idealism, we also must shun the ways of the narrow mind, and the
eyes that refuse to see the truth. Wild animals are not superhuman
demigods of wisdom; but neither are they idiots, unable to reason
from cause to effect along the simple lines that vitally affect
their existence.
Brain-owning wild animals are not mere machines of flesh and
blood, set agoing by the accident of birth, and running for life
on the narrow-gauge railway of Heredity. They are not "Machines in
Fur and Feathers," as one naturalist once tried to make the world
believe them to be. Some animals have more intelligence than some
men; and some have far better morals.
What Constitutes Evidence. The best evidence regarding the ways of
wild animals is one's own eye-witness testimony. Not all second-
hand observations are entirely accurate. Many persons do not know
how to observe; and at times some are deceived by their own eyes
or ears. It is a sad fact that both those organs are easily
deceived. The student who is in doubt regarding the composition of
evidence will do well to spend a few days in court listening to
the trial of an important and hotly contested case. In collecting
real evidence, all is not gold that glitters.
Many a mind misinterprets the thing seen, sometimes innocently,
and again wantonly. The nature fakir is always on the alert to see
wonderful phenomena in wild life, about which to write; and by
preference he places the most strained and marvellous
interpretation upon the animal act. Beware of the man who always
sees marvellous things in animals, for he is a dangerous guide.
There is one man who claims to have seen in his few days in the
woods more wonders than all the older American naturalists and
sportsmen have seen added together.
Now, Nature does not assemble all her wonderful phenomena and hold
them in leash to be turned loose precisely when the great Observer
of Wonders spends his day in the woods. Wise men always suspect
the man who sees too many marvelous things.
The Relative Value of Witnesses. It is due that a word should be
said regarding "expert testimony" in the case of the wild animal.
Some dust has been raised in this field by men posing as
authorities on wild animal psychology, whose observations of the
world's wild animals have been confined to the chipmunks,
squirrels, weasels, foxes, rabbits, and birds dwelling within a
small circle surrounding some particular woodland house. In
another class other men have devoted heavy scientific labors to
laboratory observations on white rats, domestic rabbits, cats,
dogs, sparrows, turtles and newts as the handpicked exponents of
the intelligence of the animals of the world!
Alas! for the human sense of Proportion!
Fancy an ethnologist studying the Eskimo, the Dog-Rib Indian, the
Bushman, the Aino and the Papuan, and then proceeding to write
conclusively "On the Intelligence of the Human Race."
The proper place in which to study the minds, manners and morals
of wild animals is in the most thickly populated haunts of the
most intelligent species. The free and untrammeled animal, busily
working out its own destiny unhindered by man, is the beau-ideal
animal to observe and to study. Go to the plain, the wilderness,
the desert and the mountain, not merely to shoot everything on
foot, but to SEE _animals at home,_ and there use your eyes
and your field-glass. See what _normal wild animals_ do as
"behavior," and then try to find out why they do it.
The next best place for study purposes is a spacious, sanitary and
well-stocked zoological park, wherein are assembled great
collections of the most interesting land vertebrates that can be
procured, from all over the earth. There the student can observe
many new traits of wild animal character, as they are brought to
the surface by captivity. There will some individuals reveal the
worst traits of their species. Others will reveal marvels in
mentality, and teach lessons such as no man can learn from them in
the open. To study temperament, there is no place like a zoo.
Even there, however, the wisest course,--as it seems to me,--is
not to introduce too many appliances as aids to mental activity,
but rather to see what the animal subject thinks and does _by
its own initiative._ In the testing of memory and the
perceptive faculties, training for performances is the best method
to pursue.
The reader has a right to know that the author of this volume has
enjoyed unparalleled opportunities for the observation and study
of highly intelligent wild animals, both in their wild haunts and
in a great vivarium; and these combined opportunities have covered
a long series of years.
Before proceeding farther, it is desirable to define certain terms
that frequently will be used in these pages.
THE ANIMAL BRAIN is the generator of the mind, and the clearing-
house of the senses. As a mechanism, the brain of man is the most
perfect, and in the descent through the mammals, birds, reptiles,
amphibians and fishes, the brain progressively is simplified in
form and function.
THOUGHT is the result of the various processes of the brain and
nervous system, stimulated by the contributions of the senses.
SANITY is the state of normal, orderly and balanced thought, as
formulated by a healthy brain.
INSANITY is a state of mental disease, resulting in disordered,
unbalanced and chaotic thought, destitute of reason.
REASON is the manifestation of correct observation and healthful
thought which recognizes both cause and effect, and leads from
premise to conclusion. INTELLIGENCE is created by the possession
of knowledge either inherited or acquired. It may be either latent
or active; and it is the forerunner of reason.
INSTINCT is the knowledge or impulse which animals or men derive
from their ancestors by inheritance, and which they obey, either
consciously or subconsciously in working out their own
preservation, increase and betterment. Instinct often functions as
a sixth sense.
EDUCATION is the acquirement of knowledge by precept or by
observation; but animals as well as men may be self-taught, and
become self-educated, by the diligent exercise of the observing
and reasoning faculties. The adjustment of a wild animal mind to
conditions unknown to its ancestors is through the process of
self-education, and by logical reasoning from premise to
conclusion.
The wild animal must think, or die.
Animal intelligence varies in quantity and quality as much as
animals vary in size. Idiots, maniacs and sleeping persons are the
only classes of human beings who are devoid of intelligence and
reasoning power. Idiots and maniacs also are often devoid of the
common animal _instinct_ that ordinarily promotes self-
preservation from fire, water and high places. A heavily sleeping
person is often so sodden in slumber that his senses of smell and
hearing are temporarily dead; and many a sleeping man has been
asphyxiated by gas or smoke, or burned to death, because his
deadened senses failed to arouse him at the critical moment. (This
dangerous condition of mind can be cured by efforts of the will,
exercised prior to sleep, through a determination resolutely to
arouse and investigate every unusual sensation that registers
"danger" on any one of the senses.) The normal individual sleeps
with a subconscious and sensitive mind, from which thought and
reason have not been entirely eliminated.
Every act of a man or animal, vertebrate or invertebrate, is based
upon either _reason_ or _hereditary instinct._ It is a
mistake to assume that because an organism is small it
necessarily has no "mind," and none of the propelling impulse that
we call thought. The largest whale may have less intelligence and
constructive reasoning than a trap-door spider, a bee or an ant.
To deny this is to deny the evidence of one's senses.
A MEASURE FOR ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. The intelligence of an animal
may be estimated by taking into account, separately, its mental
qualities, about as follows:
1. General knowledge of surrounding conditions.
2. Powers of independent observation and reasoning.
3. Memory.
4. Comprehension under tuition.
5. Accuracy in the execution of man's orders.
Closely allied to these are the _moral qualities_ which go to
make up an animal's temperament and disposition, about as follows:
1. Amiability, which guarantees security to its associates.
2. Patience, or submission to discipline and training.
3. Courage, which gives self-confidence and steadiness.
4. A disposition to obedience, with cheerfulness.
All normal vertebrate animals exercise their intelligence in
accordance with their own rules of logic. Had they not been able
to do so, it is reasonable to suppose that they could never have
developed into vertebrates, reaching even up to man himself.
According to the laws of logic, this proposition is no more open
to doubt or dispute than is the existence of the Grand Canyon of
the Colorado. But few persons have seen the Canyon, and far fewer
ever have proven its existence by descending to its bottom; but
none the less Reason admonishes all of us that the great chasm
exists, and is not a debatable question.
To men and women who really know the vertebrate animals by contact
with some of them upon their own levels, the reasoning power of
the latter is not a debatable question. The only real question is:
how far does their intelligence carry them? It is with puzzled
surprise that we have noted the curious diligence of the
professors of animal psychology in always writing of "animal
_behavior_," and never of old-fashioned, common-sense
_animal intelligence_. Can it be possible that any one of
them really refuses to concede to the wild animal the possession
of a mind, and a working intelligence?
Yes. Animals do reason. If any one truth has come out of all the
critical or uncritical study of the animal mind that has been
going on for two centuries, it is this. Animals do reason; they
always have reasoned, and as long as animals live they never will
cease to reason.
The higher wild animals possess and display the same fundamental
passions and emotions that animate the human race. This fact is
subject to intelligent analysis, discussion and development, but
it is not by any means a "question" subject to debate. In the most
intellectual of the quadrupeds, birds and reptiles, the display of
fear, courage, love, hate, pleasure, displeasure, confidence,
suspicion, jealousy, pity, greed and generosity are so plainly
evident that even children can and do recognize them. To the
serious and open-minded student who devotes prolonged thought to
these things, they bring the wild animal very near to the "lord of
creation."
To the question, "Have wild animals souls?" we reply, "That is a
debatable question. Read; then think it over."
METHODS WITH THE ANIMAL MIND. In the study of animal minds, much
depends upon the method employed. It seems to me that the problem-
box method of the investigators of "animal behavior" leaves much
to be desired. Certainly it is not calculated to develop the
mental status of animals along lines of natural mental
progression. To place a wild creature in a great artificial
contrivance, fitted with doors, cords, levers, passages and what
not, is enough to daze or frighten any timid animal out of its
normal state of mind and nerves. To put a wild sapajou monkey,--
weak, timid and afraid,--in a strange and formidable prison box
filled with strange machinery, and call upon it to learn or to
invent strange mechanical processes, is like bringing a boy of ten
years up to a four-cylinder duplex Hoe printing-and-folding press,
and saying to him: "Now, go ahead and find out how to run this
machine, and print both sides of a signature upon it."
The average boy would shrink from the mechanical monster, and have
no stomach whatever for "trial by error."
I think that the principle of determining the mind of a wild
animal _along the lines of the professor_ is not the best
way. It should be developed _along the natural lines of the
wild-animal mind._ It should be stimulated to do what it feels
most inclined to do, and educated to achieve real mental progress.
I think that the ideal way to study the minds of apes, baboons and
monkeys would be to choose a good location in a tropical or sub-
tropical climate that is neither too wet nor too dry, enclose an
area of five acres with an unclimbable fence, and divide it into
as many corrals as there are species to be experimented upon. Each
corral would need a shelter house and indoor playroom. The stage
properties should be varied and abundant, and designed to
stimulate curiosity as well as activity.
Somewhere in the program I would try to teach orang-utans and
chimpanzees the properties of fire, and how to make and tend
fires. I would try to teach them the seed-planting idea, and the
meaning of seedtime and harvest. I would teach sanitation and
cleanliness of habit,--a thing much more easily done than most
persons suppose. I would teach my apes to wash dishes and to cook,
and I am sure that some of them would do no worse than some human
members of the profession who now receive $50 per month, or more,
for spoiling food.
In one corral I would mix up a chimpanzee, an orang-utan, a golden
baboon and a good-tempered rhesus monkey. My apes would begin at
two years old, because after seven or eight years of age all apes
are difficult, or even impossible, as subjects for peaceful
experimentation.
I would try to teach a chimpanzee the difference between a noise
and music, between heat and cold, between good food and bad food.
Any trainer can teach an animal the difference between the
blessings of peace and the horrors of war, or in other words,
obedience and good temper versus cussedness and punishment.
Dr. Yerkes' laboratory in Montecito, California, and his
experiments there with an orang-utan and other primates, were in a
good place, and made a good beginning. It is very much to be hoped
that means will be provided by which his work can be prosecuted
indefinitely, and under the most perfect conditions that money can
provide.
I hope that I will live long enough to see Dr. Yerkes develop the
mind of a young grizzly bear in a four-acre lot, to the utmost
limits of that keen and sagacious personality.
II
WILD ANIMAL TEMPERAMENT AND INDIVIDUALITY
In man and in vertebrate animals generally, temperament is the
foundation of intelligence and progress. Fifty years ago Fowler
and Wells, the founders of the science of phrenology and
physiognomy, very wisely differentiated and defined four
"temperaments" of mankind. The six types now recognized by me are
the _morose, lymphatic, sanguine, nervous, hysterical_ and
_combative_; and their names adequately describe them.
This classification applies to the higher wild animals, quite as
truly as to men. By the manager of wild animals in captivity,
wild-animal temperament universally is recognized and treated as a
factor of great practical importance. Mistakes in judging the
temper of dangerous animals easily lead to tragedies and sudden
death.
Fundamentally the temperament of a man or an animal is an
inheritance from ancestors near or remote. In the human species a
morose or hysterical temperament may possibly be corrected or
improved, by education and effort. With animals this is rarely
possible. The morose gorilla gives way to cheerfulness only when
it is placed in ideally pleasant and stimulating social
conditions. This, however, very seldom is possible. The nervous
deer, bear or monkey is usually nervous to the end of its days.
The morose and hysterical temperaments operate against mental
development, progress and happiness. In the human species among
individuals of equal mental calibre, the sanguine individual is
due to rise higher and go farther than his nervous or lymphatic
rivals. A characteristic temperament may embrace the majority of
a whole species, or be limited to a few individuals. Many species
are permanently characterized by the temperament common to the
majority of their individual members. Thus, among the great apes
the gorilla species is either morose or lymphatic; and it is
manifested by persistent inactivity and sullenness. This leads to
loss of appetite, indigestion, inactivity and early death. Major
Penny's "John Gorilla" was a notable exception, as will appear in
Chapter IX.
The orang-utan is sanguine, optimistic and cheerful, a good
boarder, affectionate toward his keepers, and friendly toward
strangers. He eats well, enjoys life, lives long, and is well
liked by everybody.
Except when quite young, the chimpanzee is either nervous or
hysterical. After six years of age it is irritable and difficult
to manage. After seven years of age (puberty) it is rough,
domineering and dangerous. The male is given to shouting, yelling,
shrieking and roaring, and when quite angry rages like a demon. I
know of no wild animal that is more dangerous per pound than a
male chimpanzee over eight years of age. When young they do
wonders in trained performances, but when they reach maturity,
grow big of arm and shoulder, and masterfully strong, they quickly
become conscious of their strength. It is then that performing
chimpanzees become unruly, fly into sudden fits of temper, their
back hair bristles up, they stamp violently, and sometimes leap
into a terrorized orchestra. Next in order, they are retired
willy-nilly from the stage, and are offered for sale to zoological
parks and gardens having facilities for confinement and control.
The baboons are characteristically fierce and aggressive, and in a
wild state they live in troops, or even in herds of hundreds.
Being armed with powerful canine teeth and wolf-like jaws, they
are formidable antagonists, and other animals do not dare to
attack them. It is because of their natural weapons, their
readiness to fight like fiends, and their combined agility and
strength that the baboons have been able to live on the ground and
survive and flourish in lands literally reeking with lions,
leopards, hyenas and wild dogs. The awful canine teeth of an old
male baboon are quite as dangerous as those of any leopard, and
even the leopard's onslaught is less to be feared than the wild
rage of an adult baboon. In the Transvaal and Rhodesia, it is a
common occurrence for an ambitious dog to go after a troop of
baboons and never return.
Temperamentally the commoner groups of monkeys are thus
characterized:
The rhesus monkeys of India are nervous, irritable and dangerous.
The green monkeys of Africa are sanguine, but savage and
treacherous.
The langur monkeys of India are sanguine and peace-loving.
The macaques of the Far East vary from the sanguine temperament to
the combative.
The gibbons vary from sanguine to combative.
The lemurs of Madagascar are sanguine, affectionate and peaceful.
Nearly all South American monkeys are sanguine, and peace-loving,
and many are affectionate.
The species of the group of Carnivora are too numerous and too
diversified to be treated with any approach to completeness.
However, to illustrate this subject the leading species will be
noticed.
TEMPERAMENTS OF THE LARGE CARNIVORES
The lion is sanguine, courageous, confident, reposeful and very
reliable.
The tiger is nervous, suspicious, treacherous and uncertain.
The black and common leopards are nervous and combative,
irreconcilable and dangerous.
The snow leopard is sanguine, optimistic and peace-loving. The
puma is sanguine, good natured, quiet and peaceful.
The wolves are sanguine, crafty, dangerous and cruel.
The foxes are hysterical, timid and full of senseless fear.
The lynxes are sanguine, philosophic, and peaceful.
The mustelines are either nervous or hysterical, courageous,
savage, and even murderous.
The bears are so very interesting that it is well worth while to
consider the leading species separately. Possibly our conclusions
will reveal some unsuspected conditions.
BEAR TEMPERAMENTS, BY SPECIES. The polar bears are sanguine, but
in captivity they are courageous, treacherous and dangerous.
The Alaskan brown bears in captivity are sanguine, courageous,
peaceful and reliable, but in the wilds they are aggressive and
dangerous.
The grizzlies are nervous, keen, cautious, and seldom wantonly
aggressive.
The European brown bears are sanguine, optimistic and good-
natured.
The American black bears are sanguine and quiet, but very
treacherous.
The sloth bears of India are nervous or hysterical, and uncertain.
The Malay sun bears are hysterical, aggressive and evil-tempered.
The Japanese black bears are nervous, cowardly and aggressive.
To those who form and maintain large collections of bears,
involving much companionship in dens, it is necessary to keep a
watchful eye on the temperament chart.
THE DEER. In our Zoological Park establishment there is no
collection in which both the collective and the individual
equation is more troublesome than the deer family. In their
management, as with apes, monkeys and bears, it is necessary to
take into account the temperament not only of the species, but
also of each animal; and there are times when this necessity bears
hard upon human nerves. The proneness of captive deer to maim and
to kill themselves and each other calls for the utmost vigilance,
and for heroic endurance on the part of the deer keeper.
Even when a deer species has a fairly good record for common
sense, an individual may "go crazy" the instant a slightly new
situation arises. We have seen barasingha deer penned up between
shock-absorbing bales of hay seriously try to jump straight up
through a roof skylight nine feet from the floor. We have seen
park-bred axis deer break their own necks against wire fences,
with 100 per cent of stupidity.
CHARACTERS OF DEER SPECIES
The white-tailed deer is sanguine, but in the fall the bucks are
very aggressive and dangerous, and to be carefully avoided. The
mule deer is sanguine, reasonable and not particularly dangerous.
The elk is steady of nerve, and sanguine in temperament, but in
the rutting season the herd-masters are dangerous.
The fallow deer species has been toned down by a hundred
generations of park life, and it is very quiet, save when it is to
be captured and crated.
The axis deer is nervous, flighty, and difficult to handle.
The barasingha deer is hysterical and unaccountable.
The Indian and Malay sambar deer are lymphatic, confident,
tractable and easily handled.
Never keep a deer as a "pet" any longer than is necessary to place
it in a good home. All "pet deer" are dangerous, and should be
confined all the time. Never go into the range or corral of a deer
herd unless accompanied by the deer-keeper; and in the rutting
season do not go in at all.
The only thoroughly safe deer is a dead one; for even does can do
mischief. A SAMPLE OF NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT. As an example of
temperament in small carnivores, we will cite the coati mundi of
South America. It is one of the most nervous and restless animals
we know. An individual of sanguine temperament rarely is seen. Out
of about forty specimens with which we have been well acquainted,
I do not recall one that was as quiet and phlegmatic as the
raccoon, the nearest relative of _Nasua_. With a disposition
so restless and enterprising, and with such vigor of body and
mind, I count it strange that the genus _Nasua_ has not
spread all over our south-eastern states, where it is surely
fitted to exist in a state of nature even more successfully than
the raccoon or opossum.
The temper of the coati mundi is essentially quarrelsome and
aggressive. While young, they are reasonably peaceful, but when
they reach adult age, they become aggressive, and quarrels are
frequent. Separations then are very necessary, and it is rare
indeed that more than two adult individuals can be caged together.
Even when two only are kept together, quarrels and shrill
squealings are frequent. But they seldom hurt each other. The
coati is not a treacherous animal, it is not given to lying in
wait to make a covert attack from ambush, and being almost
constantly on the move, it is a good show animal.
THE STRANGE COMBATIVE TEMPERAMENT OF THE GUANACO. In appearance
the guanaco is the personification of gentleness. Its placid
countenance indicates no guile, nor means of offense. Its lustrous
gazelle-like eyes, and its soft, woolly fleece suggest softness of
disposition. But in reality no animal is more deceptive. In a wild
state amongst its own kind, or in captivity,--no matter how
considerately treated,--it is a quarrelsome and at times
intractable animal. "A pair of wild guanacos can often be seen or
heard engaged in desperate combat, biting and tearing, and rolling
over one another on the ground, uttering their gurgling, bubbling
cries of rage. Of a pair so engaged, I shot one whose tail had
then been bitten off in the encounter. In confinement, the guanaco
charges one with his chest, or rears up on his hind legs to strike
one with his fore-feet, besides biting and spitting up the
contents of the stomach."--Richard Crawshay in "The Birds of Terra
del Fuego."
MENTAL TRAITS AND TEMPER OF THE ATLANTIC WALRUS
Mr. Langdon Gibson, of Schenectady, kindly wrote out for me the
following highly interesting observations on a remarkable arctic
animal with which we are but slightly acquainted:
"In the summer of 1891, as a member of the first Peary Expedition
I had an opportunity of observing some of the traits of the
Atlantic walrus. I found him to be a real animal, of huge size,
with an extremely disagreeable temper and most belligerently
inclined. We hunted them in open whale-boats under the shadows of
Greenland's mountain-bound coast, in the Whale Sound region, Lat.
77 degrees North.
"We hunted among animals never before molested, except by the
Eskimo who (so far as I was able to ascertain) hunt them only
during the winter season on the sea ice. We found animals whose
courage and belief in themselves and their prowess had hitherto
been unshaken by contact with the white man and his ingenious
devices of slaughter.
"The walrus has a steady nerve and a thoroughly convincing roar.
They have fought their kind and the elements for centuries and
centuries, and know no fear. This, then, was the animal we sought
in order to secure food for our dog teams. I can conceive of no
form of big game hunting so conducive to great mental excitement
and physical activity as walrus hunting from an open whale-boat.
At the completion of such a hunt I have seen Eskimo so excited and
worked up that they were taken violently sick with vomiting and
headache.
"The walrus is a gregarious animal, confederating in herds
numbering from ten to fifty, and in some instances no doubt larger
numbers may be found together. On calm days they rest in
unmolested peace on pans of broken ice which drift up and down the
waters of Whale Sound. It is unfortunate that no soundings were
taken in the region where the walrus were found, as a knowledge of
the depth of water would have furnished some information as to the
distances to which the animal will dive in search of food.
"The stomachs of all half- and full-grown walrus taken in Whale
Sound were without exception well filled with freshly opened
clams, with very few fragments of shells in evidence; the removal
of the clam from the shell being as neatly accomplished as though
done by an expert oysterman.
"In most cases these segregated herds of walrus were in charge of
a large bull who generally occupied a central position in the mass
of animals. Upon approaching such a herd for the first time, and
when within about 200 feet, a large bull would lift his head,
sniff audibly in our direction and give a loud grunt which
apparently struck a responsive chord in the other sleeping
animals. They would grunt in unison, in more subdued tones, after
which the old walrus would drop his head to resume his interrupted
nap. Their contempt for us was somewhat disconcerting.
"At the first crack of a rifle, however, the animals immediately
aroused, and then during the fusillade which followed there
occurred what might be called an orderly scramble for the water.
In the first place the young ones were hustled to the edge of the
ice-pan, and there, apparently under the protection of the
mother's flipper, pushed into the water, immediately followed by
the mother. The young bulls followed, and I recall no exceptions
where the last animal into the water was not the big bull, who
before diving would give our boat a wicked look and a roar of
rage.
"The animals would immediately dive, and then we first became
aware of a remarkable phenomenon. We found that when excited they
would continue their roaring under water, and these strange sounds
coming to us from below added considerably to the excitement of
the chase. Although the cows and young animals would generally
swim to places of safety, the other full grown animals would hover
beneath our boat and from time to time come to the surface and
charge. These charges were in all cases repulsed by the discharge
of our rifles in the faces of the animals. The balls, however,
from our .45 calibre carbines would flatten out under the skin on
the massive bony structure of the animal's skull, and cause only a
sort of rage and a sneeze, but it however had the effect of making
them dive again. It is my belief that when enraged the walrus if
not resisted would attack and attempt to destroy a boat. Icquah,
one of our native hunters, showed me in the deck of his kyak two
mended punctures which he told me were made by the tusks of a
walrus that had made an _unprovoked_ attack upon him.
"On more than one occasion I have seen two strong uninjured
animals come to the assistance of a wounded companion, and swim
away with it to a position of safety, _the injured animal being
supported on both sides_, giving the appearance of three
animals swimming abreast. The first time I witnessed this I did
not comprehend its real meaning, but on another occasion in
McCormick Bay I saw a wounded animal leaving a trail of blood and
oil, supported on either side by two uninjured ones. They were
making a hasty retreat and would occasionally dive together, but
would quickly return to the surface.
"We found the most effective exposed spot to place a bullet was at
the base of the animal's skull. A walrus instantly killed this way
generally sinks, leaving a trail of blood and oil to mark the
place of his descent. When hunting these animals it is well to
have an Eskimo along with harpoon and line in readiness to make
fast; otherwise one is apt to lose his quarry.
"In the early winter we usually found the walrus in smaller groups
up in the bays. This was after the ice had begun to make, and in
coming to the surface to breathe the animals found it necessary
to butt their noses against the ice to break it. I have seen this
done in ice at least four inches in thickness. In some instances
I have seen a fractured star in the ice, a record of an unsuccessful
attempt to make a breathing hole." Around these breathing holes
we frequently found fragments of clam-shells, sections of
crinoids and sea-anemones. It is evident that after raking the
bottom with his tusks and filling his mouth with food, the walrus
separates the food he desires to retain and rejects on his way up
and at the surface such articles as he has picked up in haste and
does not want.
"From the fact that the walrus is easily approached it is a simple
matter to kill him with the modern high power rule. It is
therefore to be hoped that future expeditions into the arctic seas
will kill sparingly of these tremendous brutes which from point of
size stand in the foremost rank among mammals."
The Elephant, Rhinoceros and Hippopotamus. _Individual
Elephants_ vary in temperament far more than do rhinoceroses
or hippopotami, and the variations are wide. In a wild state,
elephants are quiet and undemonstrative, almost to the point of
dullness. They do not domineer, or hector, or quarrel, save when a
rogue develops in the ranks, and sets out to make things
interesting by the commission of lawless acts. A professional
rogue is about everything that an orthodox elephant should not
be, and he soon makes of himself so great a nuisance that he is
driven out of the herd.
The temperament of the standardized and normal elephant is
distinctly sanguine, _but a nervous or hysterical individual is
easily developed by bad conditions or abuse_. Adult male
elephants are subject to various degrees of what we may as well
call sexual insanity, which is dangerous in direct proportion to
its intensity. This causes many a "bad" show elephant to be
presented to a zoological garden, where the dangers of this mental
condition can at least be reduced to their lowest terms. Our
Indian elephant who was known as Gunda was afflicted with sexual
insanity, and he gradually grew worse, and increasingly dangerous
to his keepers, until finally it was necessary to end his troubles
painlessly with a bullet through his brain.
_The Rhinoceros_ is a sanguine animal, of rather dull vision
and slow understanding. In captivity it gives little trouble, and
lives long. Adults individually often become pettish, or peevish,
and threaten to prod their keepers without cause, but I have never
known a keeper to take those lapses seriously. The average rhino
is by no means a dull or a stupid animal, and they have quite
enough life to make themselves interesting to visitors. In British
East Africa a black rhinoceros often trots briskly toward a
caravan, and seems to be charging, when in reality it is only
desiring a "close-up" to satisfy its legitimate curiosity.
_Every Hippopotamus_, either Nile or pygmy, is an animal of
serene mind and steady habits. Their appetites work with clock-
like regularity, and require no winding. I can not recall that any
one of our five hippos was ever sick for a day, or missed a meal.
When the idiosyncrasies of Gunda, our bad elephant, were at their
worst, the contemplation of Peter the Great ponderously and
serenely chewing his hay was a rest to tired nerves. Keeper Thuman
treats the four pygmy hippos like so many pet pigs,--save the
solitary adult male, who sets himself up to be peevish. The
breeding female is a wise and good mother, with much more maternal
instinct than our chimpanzee "Suzette."
It may be set down as an absolute rule that hippos are lymphatic,
easy-going, contented, and easy to take care of _provided_
they are kept scrupulously clean, and are fed as they should be
fed. They live long, breed persistently, give no trouble and have
high exhibition value.
_Giraffe_ individuals vary exceedingly,--beyond all other
hoofed animals. Each one has its own headful of notions, and
rarely will two be found quite alike in temperament and views of
life. Some are sanguine and sensible, others are nervous,
crotchety, and full of senseless fears. Those who are responsible
for them in captivity are constantly harassed by fears that they
will stampede in their stalls or yards, and break their own necks
and legs in most unexpected ways. They require greater vigilance
than any other hoofed animals we know. Sometimes a giraffe will
develop foolishness to such a degree as to be unwilling to go out
of its own huge door, into a shady and comfortable yard.
III
THE LANGUAGE OF WILD ANIMALS
Language is the means by which men and animals express their
thoughts. Of language there are four kinds: vocal, pictured,
written and sign language.
Any vocal sound uttered for the purpose of conveying thought, or
influencing thought or action, is to be classed as vocal language.
Among the mammals below man, _speech_ is totally absent; but
parrots, macaws, cockatoos and crows have been taught to imitate
the sound of man's words, or certain simple kinds of music.
The primitive races of mankind first employed the sign language,
and spoken words. After that comes picture language, and lastly
the language of written words. Among the Indians and frontiersmen
of the western United States and Canada, the sign language has
reached what in all probability is its highest development, and
its vocabulary is really wonderful.
The higher wild animals express their thoughts and feelings
usually by sign language, and rarely by vocal sounds. Their power
of expression varies species by species, or tribe by tribe, quite
as it does among the races and tribes of men. It is our belief
that there are today several living races of men whose
vocabularies are limited to about 300 words.
Very many species of animals appear to be voiceless; but it is
hazardous to attempt to specify the species. Sometimes under
stress of new emergencies, or great pain, animals that have been
considered voiceless suddenly give tongue. That hundreds of
species of mammals and birds use their voices in promoting
movements for their safety, there is no room to doubt. The only
question is of the methods and the extent of voice used. Birds and
men give expression to their pleasure or joy by singing.
In the jungle and the heavily wooded wilderness, one hears really
little of vocal wild-animal language. Through countless
generations the noisiest animals have been the first ones to be
sought out and killed by their enemies, and only the more silent
species have survived. All the higher animals, as we call the
higher vertebrates, have the ability to exchange thoughts and
convey ideas; and that is language.
At the threshold of this subject we are met by two interesting
facts. Excepting the song-birds, the wild creatures of today have
learned through instinct and accumulated experience that silence
promotes peace and long life. The bull moose who bawls through a
mile of forest, and the bull elk who bugles not wisely but too
well, soon find their heads hanging in some sportsman's dining-
room, while the silent Virginia deer, like the brook, goes on
forever.
Association with man through countless generations has taught
domestic animals not only the fact of their safety when giving
voice, but also that very often there is great virtue in a
vigorous outcry. With an insistent staccato neigh, the hungry
horse jars the dull brain of its laggard master, and prompts him
to "feed and water the stock." But how different is the cry of a
lost horse, which calls for rescue. It cannot be imitated in
printed words; but every plainsman knows the shrill and prolonged
trumpet-call of distress that can be heard a mile or more,
understandingly.
And think of the vocabulary of the domestic chicken! Years of life
in fancied security have developed a highly useful vocabulary of
language calls and cries. The most important, and the best known,
are the following:
"Beware the hawk!"--"Coor! Coor!" "Murder! Help!"--"Kee-
_owk_! Kee-_owk_! Kee-_owk_!" "Come on"--"Cluck!
Cluck! Cluck!" "Food here! Food!"--"Cook-cook-cook-cook!"
Announcement, or alarm--"Cut-cut-cut-_dah_-cut!" But does
the wild jungle-fowl, the ancestor of our domestic chicken,
indulge in all those noisy expressions of thought and feeling? By
no means. I have lived for months in jungles where my hut was
surrounded by jungle-fowl, and shot many of them for my table; but
the only vocal sound I ever heard from their small throats was the
absurdly shrill bantam-like crow of the cock. And even that led to
several fatalities in the ranks of _Gallus stanleyi_.
Domestic cattle, swine and fowls have each a language of their
own, and as far as they go they are almost as clear-cut and
understandable as the talk of human beings. Just how much more is
behind the veil that limits our understanding we cannot say; but
no doubt there is a great deal.
But it is with the language of wild animals that we are most
concerned. As already pointed out, wild creatures, other than
song-birds, do not care to say much, because of the danger of
attracting enemies that will exterminate them. Herein lies the
extreme difficulty of ascertaining how wild beasts communicate.
In the Animallai Hills of southern India I hunted constantly for
many weeks through forests actually teeming with big game. There
were herds upon herds of elephants, gaur, axis deer, sambar deer,
monkeys by the hundred, and a good sprinkling of bears, wild hogs
and tigers.
We saw hundreds upon hundreds of animals; but with the exception
of the big black monkeys that used to swear at us, I can almost
count upon my fingers the whole number of times that we heard
animals raise their voices to communicate with each other.
Ape Voices. Naturally it is of interest to know something of the
voices of the animals that physically and mentally stand nearest
to man.
The wild gorilla has a voice almost equal to that of the
chimpanzee, but in captivity he rarely utters any vocal sound
other than a shriek, or scream.
The baby orang-utan either whines or shrieks like a human child.
The half-grown or adult orang when profoundly excited bellows or
roars, in a deep bass voice. Usually, however, it is a
persistently silent animal.
The chimpanzee has a voice, and vociferously expresses its
emotions.
First and most often is the plaintive, coaxing note, "Who'-oo!
who'-oo! who'-oo!"
Then comes the angry and threatening, "Wah', wah', wah-!
_Wah'_-hool _Wah'_-hool"
Lastly we hear the fearful, high-pitched yell or shriek, "Ah-h-h-
h!" or "E-e-e-e."
The shriek, or scream, can be heard half a mile, and at close
range it is literally ear-splitting. Usually it is accompanied by
violent stamping or pounding with the feet upon the floor. It may
signify rage, or nothing more than the joy of living, and of
having a place in which to yell. It is this cry that is uncannily
human-like in sound, and when heard for the first time it seems to
register anguish.
In its Bornean jungle home, the orang-utan is nearly as silent as
the grave. Never save once did I hear one utter a vocal sound.
That was a deep bass roar emitted by an old male that I disturbed
while he was sleeping on the comfortable nest of green branches
that he had built for himself.
Concerning the chimpanzee, the late Mr. Richard L. Garner
testified as follows:
"Not only does the chimpanzee often break the silence of the
forest when all other voices are hushed, but he frequently answers
the sounds of other animals, as if in mockery or defiance. ...
Although diurnal in habit, the chimpanzees often make the night
reverberate with the sounds of their terrific screaming, which I
have known them to continue at times for more than an hour, with
scarcely a moment's pause,--not one voice but many, and within
the area of a square mile or so I have distinguished as many as
seven alternating adult male voices.
"The gorilla is more silent and stoical than the chimpanzee, but
he is far from being mute. He appears to be devoid of all
risibility, but he is often very noisy. Although diurnal in habit,
he talks less frequently during the day than at night, but his
silence is a natural consequence of his stealth and cunning. There
are times, however, when he ignores all danger of betraying his
whereabouts or his movements, and gives vent to a deluge of
speech. At night his screams and shouts are terrific."
The gibbons (including the siamang) have tremendous voices, with
numerous variations, and they love to use them. My acquaintance
with them began in Borneo, in the dense and dark coastal forest
that there forms their home. I remember their cries as vividly as
if I had heard them again this morning. While feeding, or quietly
enjoying the morning sun, the gray gibbon (_Hylobates
concolor_) emits in leisurely succession a low staccato,
whistle-like cry, like "Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!" which one can easily
counterfeit by whistling. This is varied by another whistle cry of
three notes, thus: "Who-ee-hoo! Who-ee-hoo!" also to be duplicated
by whistling. In hunting for specimens of that gibbon, for
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
reasons,--into a wonderful sound-box, as big as an English walnut,
which gives to the adult voice a depth of pitch and a booming
resonance that is impossible to describe. The note produced is a
prolonged bass roar, in alternately rising and falling cadence,
and in reality comprising about three notes. It is the habit of
troops of red howlers to indulge in nocturnal concerts, wherein
four, five or six old males will pipe up and begin to howl in
unison. The great volume of uncanny sound thus produced goes
rolling through the still forest, far and wide; and to the white
explorer who lies in his grass hammock in pitchy darkness,
fighting off the mosquitoes and loneliness, and wondering from
whence tomorrow's meals will come, the moral effect is gruesome
and depressing.
In captivity the youthful howler habitually growls and grumbles in
a way that is highly amusing, and the absurd pitch of the deep
bass voice issuing from so small an animal is cause for wonder.
It is natural that we should look closely to the apes and monkeys
for language, both by voice and sign. In 1891 there was a flood of
talk on "the speech of monkeys," and it was not until about 1904
that the torrent stopped. At first the knowledge that monkeys can
and do communicate to a limited extent by vocal sounds was hailed
as a "discovery"; but unfortunately for science, nothing has been
proved beyond the long-known fact that primates of a given species
understand the meaning of the few sounds and cries to which their
kind give utterance.
Thus far I have never succeeded in teaching a chimpanzee or
orangutan to say even as much as "Oh" or "Ah." Nothing seems to be
further from the mind of an orang than the idea of a new vocal
utterance as a means to an end.
Our Polly was the most affectionate and demonstrative chimpanzee
that I have ever seen, and her reaction to my voice was the best
that I have found in our many apes. She knew me well, and when I
greeted her in her own language, usually she answered me promptly
and vociferously. Often when she had been busy with her physical-
culture exercises and Delsartean movements on the horizontal bars
or the trapeze in the centre of her big cage, I tested her by
quietly joining the crowd of visitors in the centre of the room
before her cage, and saying to her: "Polly! Wah! Wah! Wah!"
Nearly every time she would stop short, give instant attention and
joyously respond "Wah! Wah! Wah!", repeating the cry a dozen times
while she clambered down to the lower front bars to reach me with
her hands. When particularly excited she would cry "_Who_-oo!
_Who_-oo! _Who_-oo!" with great clearness and vehemence,
the two syllables pitched four notes apart. This cry was uttered
as a joyous greeting, and also at feeding-time, in expectation of
food; but, simple as the task seems to be, I really do not know
how to translate its meaning into English. In one case it appears
to mean "How do you do?" and in the other it seems to stand for
"Hurry up!"
Polly screamed when angry or grieved, just like a naughty child;
and her face assumed the extreme of screaming-child expression.
She whined plaintively when coaxing, or when only slightly
grieved. With these four manifestations her vocal powers seemed to
stop short. Many times I opened her mouth widely with my fingers,
and tried to surprise her into saying "Ah," but with no result. It
seems almost impossible to stamp the vocal-sound idea upon the
mind of an orang-utan or chimpanzee. Polly uttered two distinct
and clearly cut syllables, and it really seemed as if her vocal
organs could have done more if called upon.
The cries of the monkeys, baboons and lemurs are practically
nothing more than squeals, shrieks or roars. The baboons (several
species, at least) bark or roar most explosively, using the
syllable "Wah!" It is only by the most liberal interpretation of
terms that such cries can be called language. The majority express
only two emotions--dissatisfaction and expectation. Every primate
calls for help in the same way that human beings do, by shrill
screaming; but none of them ever cry "Oh" or "Ah."
The only members of the monkey tribe who ever spoke to me in their
native forests were the big black langurs of the Animallai Hills
in Southern India. They used to glare down at us, and curse us
horribly whenever we met. Had we been big pythons instead of men
they could not have said "Confound you!" any more plainly or more
vehemently than they did.
In those museum-making days our motto was "All's fish that cometh
to net"; and we killed monkeys for their skins and skeletons the
same as other animals. My brown-skinned Mulcer hunters said that
the bandarlog hated me because of my white skin. At all events, as
we stalked silently through those forests, half a dozen times a
day we would hear an awful explosion overhead, startling to men
who were still-hunting big game, and from the middle zone of the
tree-tops black and angry faces would peer down at us. They said:
"Wah! Wah! Wah! Ah-^oo-oo-Aoo-oo-^oo-oo!" and it was nothing else
than cursing and blackguarding. How those monkeys did hate us! I
never have encountered elsewhere anything like it in monkey-land.
la 1902 there was a startling exhibition of monkey language at
our Primate House. That was before the completion of the Lion House.
We had to find temporary outdoor quarters for the big jaguar,
"Senor Lopez"; and there being nothing else available, we decided
to place him, for a few days only, in the big circular cage at the
north end of the range of outside cages. It was May, and the
baboons, red-faced monkeys, rhesus, green and many other of the
monkeys were in their outside quarters.
I was not present when Lopez was turned into the big: cage; but I
heard it. Down through the woods to the polar bears' den, a good
quarter of a mile, came a most awful uproar, made by many voices.
The bulk of it was a medley of raucous yells and screeches, above
which it was easy to distinguish the fierce, dog-like barks and
roars of the baboons.
We knew at once that Lopez had arrived. Hurrying up to the Primate
House, we found the wire fronts of the outside cages literally
plastered with monkeys and baboons, all in the wildest excitement.
The jaguar was in full view of them, and although not one out of
the whole lot, except the sapajous, ever had an ancestor who had
seen a jaguar, one and all recognized a hostile genus, and a
hereditary enemy.
And how they cursed him, reviled him, and made hideous faces at
him! The long-armed yellow baboons barked and roared until they
were heard half a mile away. The ugly-tempered macaques and
rhesus monkeys nearly burst with hatred and indignation. The row
was kept up for a long time, and the monkey language that was lost
to science on that occasion was, both in quantity and quality,
beyond compare.
Bear Language. In their native haunts bears are as little given
to loud talk as other animals; but in roomy and comfortable
captivity, where many are yarded together, they rapidly develop
vocal powers. Our bears are such cheerful citizens, and they do so
many droll things, that the average visitor works overtime in
watching them. I have learned the language of our bears
sufficiently that whenever I hear one of them give tongue I know
what he says. For example:
In warning or threatening an enemy, the sloth bear says: "Ach!
Ach! Ach!" and the grizzly says: "Woof! Woof!" A fighting bear
says: "Aw-aw-aw!" A baby's call for its mother is "Row! Row!" A
bear's distress call is: "Err-_wow_-oo-oo-oof!"
But even in a zoological park it is not possible for everyone to
recognize and interpret the different cries of bears, although the
ability to do so is sometimes of value to the party of the second
part. For example:
One day in February I was sitting in my old office in the Service
Building, engrossed in I know not what important and solemn
matter. The park was quiet; for the snow lay nine inches deep over
all. There were no visitors, and the maintenance men were
silently shovelling. Over the hill from the bear dens came the
voice of a bear. It said, as plainly as print: "Err-wow!" I said
to myself: "That sounds like a distress call," and listened to
hear it repeated.
Again it came: "Err-wow!"
I caught up my hat and hastened over the hill toward the bear
dens. On the broad concrete walk, about a hundred feet from the
dens, four men were industriously shovelling snow, unaware that
anything was wrong anywhere except on the pay-roll, opposite their
names.
Guided by the cries that came from "The Nursery" den, where six
yearling cubs were kept, I quickly caught sight of the trouble.
One of our park-born brown bear cubs was hanging fast by one
forefoot from the top of the barred partition. He had climbed to
the top of the ironwork, thrust one front paw through between two
of the bars (for bears are the greatest busybodies on earth), and
when he sought to withdraw it, the sharp point of a bar in the
overhang of the tree-guard had buried itself in the back of his
paw, and held him fast. It seemed as if his leg was broken, and
also dislocated at the shoulder. No wonder the poor little chap
squalled for help. His mother, on the other side of the partition,
was almost frantic with baffled sympathy, for she could do nothing
to help him.
It did not take more than a quarter of a minute to have several
men running for crowbars and other things, and within five minutes
from the discovery we were in the den ready for action. The little
chap gave two or three cries to let us know how badly it hurt his
leg to hang there, then bent his small mind upon rendering us
assistance.
First we lifted him up bodily, and held him, to remove the strain.
Then, by good luck, we had at hand a stout iron bar with a U-
shaped end; and with that under the injured wrist, and a crowbar
to spring the treacherous overhang, we lifted the foot clear, and
lowered little Brownie to the floor. From first to last he helped
us all he could, and seemed to realize that it was clearly "no
fair" to bite or scratch. Fortunately the leg was neither broken
nor dislocated, and although Brownie limped for ten days, he soon
was all right again.
After the incident had been closed, I gave the men a brief lecture
on the language of bears, and the necessity of being able to
recognize the distress call.
You can chase bison, elephants and deer all day without hearing a
single vocal utterance. They know through long experience the
value of silence.
The night after I shot my second elephant we noted an exception.
The herd had been divided by our onslaught. Part of it had gone
north, part of it south, and our camp for the night (beside the
dead tusker) lay midway between the two. About bedtime the
elephants began signalling to each other by trumpeting, and what
they sounded was "The assembly." They called and answered
repeatedly; and finally it became clear to my native followers
that the two herds were advancing to unite, and were likely to
meet in our vicinity. That particular trumpet call was different
from any other I have ever heard. It was a regular "Hello" signal-
call, entirely different from the "Tal-_loo_-e" blast which
once came from a feeding herd and guided us to it.
But it is only on rare occasions that elephants communicate with
each other by sound. I once knew a general alarm to be
communicated throughout a large herd by the sign language, and a
retreat organized and carried out in absolute silence. Their
danger signals to each other must have been made with their trunks
and their ears; but we saw none of them, because all the animals
were concealed from our view except when the two scouts of the
herd were hunting for us.
In captivity an elephant trumpets in protest, or through fear, or
through rage; but I am obliged to confess that as yet I cannot
positively distinguish one from the other.
Once in the Zoological Park I heard our troublesome Indian
elephant, Alice, roaring continuously as if in pain. It continued
at such a rate that I hurried over to the Elephant House to
investigate. And there I saw a droll spectacle. Keeper Richards
had taken Alice out into her yard for exercise and had ordered
her to follow him. And there he was disgustedly marching around
the yard while Alice marched after him at an interval of ten
paces, quite free and untrammeled, but all the while lustily
trumpeting and roaring in indignant protest. The only point at
which she was hurt was in her feelings.
Two questions that came into public notice concerning the voices
of two important American animals have been permanently settled
by "the barnyard naturalists" of New York.
The Voice of the American Bison. In 1907 the statement of George
Catlin, to the effect that in the fall the bellowing of buffalo
bulls on the plains resembled the muttering of distant thunder,
was denied and severely criticized in a sportsman's magazine. On
October 4 of that year, while we were selecting the fifteen bison
to be presented to the Government, to found the Wichita National
Bison Herd, four of us heard our best bull _bellow_ five
times, while another did the same thing four times.
The sound uttered was a deep-voiced roar,--not a grunt,--rising
and falling in measured cadence, and prolonged about four or five
seconds. It was totally different from the ordinary grunt of
hunger, or the menace of an angry buffalo, which is short and
sharp. In discussing the quality of the bellow, we agreed that it
could properly be called a low roar. It is heard only in the
rutting season,--the period described by Catlin,--and there is
good reason to believe that Caitlin's description is perfectly
correct.
The Scream of the Puma. This is a subject that will not lie still.
I presume it will recur every five years as long as pumas endure.
Uncountable pages of controversial letters have been expended upon
the question: "Does the puma ever scream, like a woman in
distress?"
The true answer is easy, and uncontestable by people whose minds
are open to the rules of evidence.
Yes; the adult female puma DOES scream,-_in the mating
season_, whenever it comes. It is loud, piercing, prolonged,
and has the agonized voice qualities of a boy or a woman screaming
from the pain of a surgical operation. To one who does not know
the source or the cause, it is nerve-racking. When heard in a
remote wilderness it must be truly fearsome. It says "Ow-w-w-w!"
over and over. We have heard it a hundred times or more, and it
easily carries a quarter of a mile.
The language of animals is a long and interesting subject,--so
much so that here it is possible only to sketch out and suggest
its foundations and scope. On birds alone, an entire volume should
be written; but animal intelligence is a subject as far reaching
as the winds of the earth.
No man who ever saw high in the heavens a V-shaped flock of wild
geese, or heard the honk language either afloat, ashore or in the
air, will deny the spoken language of that species. If any one
should do so, let him listen to the wild-goose wonder tales of
Jack Miner, and hear him imitate (to perfection) the honk call of
the gander at his pond, calling to wild flocks in the sky and
telling them about the corn and safety down where he is.
The woodpecker drums on the high and dry limb of a dead tree his
resounding signal-call that is nothing more nor less (in our view)
than so much sign language.
It was many years ago that we first heard in the welcome days of
early spring the resounding _"Boo-hoo-hoo"_ courting call of
the cock pinnated grouse, rolling over the moist earth for a mile
or more in words too plain to be misunderstood.
The American magpie talks beautifully; but I regret to say that I
do not understand a word of its language. One summer we had
several fine specimens in the great flying-cage, with the big and
showy waterfowl, condor, griffon vulture, ravens and crows. One of
those magpies often came over to the side of the cage to talk to
me, and as I believe, make complaints. Whether he complained about
his big and bulky cagemates, or the keepers, or me, I could not
tell; but I thought that his grievances were against the large
birds. Whenever I climbed over the guard rail and stooped down, he
would come close up to the wire, stand in one spot, and in a
quiet, confidential tone talk to me earnestly and gesticulate with
his head for five minutes straight. I have heard senile old men
run on in low-voiced, unintelligible clack in precisely the same
way. The modulations of that bird's voice, its inflections and its
vocabulary were wonderful. From his manner a messenger from Mars
might easily have inferred that the bird believed that every word
of the discourse was fully understood.
The lion roars, magnificently. The hyena "laughs"; the gray wolf
gives a mournful howl, the coyote barks and howls, and the fox
yaps. The elk bugles, the moose roars and bawls, in desire or
defiance. The elephant trumpets or screams in the joy of good
feeding, or in fear or rage; and it also rumbles deeply away down
in its throat. The red squirrel barks and chatters, usually to
scold some one whom he hates, but other small rodents know that
silence is golden.
The birds have the best voices of all creatures. They are the
sweet singers of the animal world, and to the inquiring mind that
field is a wonderland.
The frogs are vociferous; and now if they were more silent they
would last longer.
Of all the reptiles known to me, only two utter vocal sounds,--the
alligator and the elephant tortoise. The former roars or bellows,
the latter grunts.
IV
THE MOST INTELLIGENT ANIMALS
To the professional animal-man, year in and year out comes the
eternal question, "Which are the most intelligent animals?"
The question is entirely legitimate. What animals are the best
exponents of animal intelligence?
It seems to me that the numerous factors involved, and the
comparisons that must be made, can best be expressed in figures.
Opinions that are based upon only one or two sets of facts are not
worth much. There are about ten factors to be taken into account
and appraised separately.
In order to express many opinions in a small amount of space, we
submit a table of estimates and summaries, covering a few
mammalian species that are representative of many. But, try as
they will, it is not likely that any two animal men will set down
the same estimates. It all depends upon the wealth or the poverty
of first-hand, eye-witness evidence. When we enter the field of
evidence that must stand in quotation marks, we cease to know
where we will come out. We desire to state that nearly all of the
figures in the attached table of estimates are based upon the
author's own observations, made during a period of more than
forty years of ups and downs with wild animals. ESTIMATES OF THE
COMPARATIVE INTELLIGENCE AND ABILITY OF CERTAIN CONSPICUOUS WILD
ANIMALS, BASED UPON KNOWN PERFORMANCES, OR THE ABSENCE OF THEM.
[Footnote: To the author, correspondence regarding the reasons for
these estimates is impossible.]
[beginning of chart]
Perfection in all=100 [list of categories below are written
vertically above the columns, with the last column unnamed and
representing a total score of animal intelligence/1000]
Hereditary Knowledge Perceptive Faculties Original Thought Memory
Reason Receptivity in Training Efficiency in Execution Nervous
Energy Keenness of the Senses Use of the Voice
Primates
Chimpanzee . . . . . . . . .100 100 100 100 75 100 100 100 100 50 925
Orang-Utan . . . . . . . . .100 100 100 75 100 75 100 75 100 25 850
Gorilla. . . . . . . . . . . . .50 50 50 50 75 25 25 50 100 25 500
Ungulates
Indian Elephant . . . . . .100 100 100 100 100 100 100 75 50 25 850
Rhinoceros. . . . . . . . .25 25 25 25 25 0 0 25 25 0 175
Giraffe . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 25 25 25 25 25 0 25 100 0 300
White-Tailed Deer . . .100 100 100 25 50 0 0 100 100 0 575
Big-Horn Sheep . . . . . .100 100 50 25 50 0 0 100 100 0 525
Mountain Goat. . . . . . .100 100 100 25 100 0 0 100 100 0 625
Domestic Horse. . . . . .100 100 100 75 75 75 75 100 100 50 850
Carnivores
Lion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 100 50 75 50 75 50 100 100 25 725
Tiger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 75 50 50 50 25 25 100 100 0 575
Grizzly Bear . . . . . . . . .100 100 50 25 50 75 50 75 100 25 725
Brown Bear (European)100 100 50 25 50 75 50 75 100 25 650
Gray Wolf . . . . . . . . . . . 100 100 100 25 75 00 100 100 25 625
Coyote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 75 50 25 50 0 0 75 100 25 500
Red Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 100 50 75 100 0 0 100 100 25 650
Domestic Dog . . . . . . . . .50 100 75 75 75 75 100 100 100 100 850
Wolverine . . . . . . . . . . .100 100 100 25 100 0 75 100 100 0 700
Beaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 100 100 25 100 0 100 100 100 0 725
According to the author's information and belief, _these are
"the most intelligent" animals:_ The Chimpanzee is the most
intelligent of all animals below man. His mind approaches most
closely to that of man, and it carries him farthest upward toward
the human level. He can learn more by training, and learn more
easily, than any other animal.
The Orang-Utan is mentally next to the chimpanzee.
The Indian Elephant in mental capacity is third from man.
The high-class domestic Horse is a very wise and capable animal;
but this is chiefly due to its age-long association with man, and
education by him. Mentally the wild horse is a very different
animal, and in the intellectual scale it ranks with the deer and
antelopes.
The Beaver manifests, in domestic economy, more intelligence,
mechanical skill and reasoning power than any other wild animal.
The Lion is endowed with keen perceptive faculties, reasoning
ability and judgment of a high order, and its mind is
surprisingly receptive.
The Grizzly Bear is believed to be the wisest of all bears.
The Pack Rat (_Neotona_) is the intellectual phenomenon of
the great group of gnawing animals. It is in a class by itself.
The White Mountain Goat seems to be the wisest of all the mountain
summit animals whose habits are known to zoologists and sportsmen.
A high-class Dog is the animal that mentally is in closest touch
with the mind, the feelings and the impulses of man; and it is the
only one that can read a man's feelings from his eyes and his
facial expression.
The Marvelous Beaver. Let us consider this animal as an
illuminating example of high-power intelligence.
In domestic economy the beaver is the most intelligent of all
living mammals. His inherited knowledge, his original thought, his
reasoning power and his engineering and mechanical skill in
constructive works are marvelous and beyond compare. In his
manifold industrial activities, there is no other mammal that is
even a good second to him. He builds dams both great and
small, to provide water in which to live, to store food and to
escape from his enemies. He builds air-tight houses of sticks and
mud, either as islands, or on the shore. When he cannot live as a
pond-beaver with a house he cheerfully becomes a river-beaver.
He lives in a river-bank burrow when house-building in a pond
is impossible; and he will cheerfully tunnel under a stone wall
from one-pond monotony, to go exploring outside.
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS AT THE
PRIMATES' HOUSE Chimpanzees (with large ears) and orang-utans
(small ears). The animal on the extreme right is an orang of the
common caste]
He cuts down trees, both small and large, and he makes them fall
as he wishes them to fall. He trims off all branches, and leaves
no "slash" to cumber the ground. He buries green branches, in
great quantity, in the mud at the bottom of his pond, so that in
winter he can get at them under a foot of solid ice. He digs
canals, of any length he pleases, to float logs and billets of
wood from hinterland to pond.
If you are locating beavers in your own zoo, and are wise, you can
induce beavers to build their dam where you wish it to be. This is
how we did it!
We dug out a pond of mud in order that the beavers might have a
pond of water; and we wished the beavers to build a dam forty feet
long, at a point about thirty feet from the iron fence where the
brook ran out. On thinking it over we concluded that we could
manage it by showing the animals where we wished them to go to
work.
We set a l2-inch plank on its edge, all the way across the dam
site, and pegged it down. Above it the water soon formed a little
pool and began to flow over the top edge in a very miniature
waterfall. Then we turned loose four beavers and left them.
The next morning we found a cart-load of sticks and fresh mud
placed like a dam against the iron fence. In beaver language this
said to us:
"We would rather build our dam here,--if you don't mind. It will
be easier for us, and quicker."
We removed all their material; and in our language that action
said: "No; we would rather have you build over the plank."
The next night more mud and sticks piled against the fence said to
us,
"We really _insist_ upon building it here!"
We made a second clearance of their materials, saying in effect:
"You _shall not_ build against the fence! You _must_
build where we tell you!"
Thereupon, the beavers began to build over the plank, saying,
"Oh, well, if you are going to make a fuss about it, we will let
you have your way."
So they built a beautiful water-tight dam precisely where we
suggested it to them, and after that our only trouble was to keep
them from overdoing the matter, and flooding the whole valley.
I am not going to dwell upon the mind and manners of the beaver.
The animal is well known. Three excellent books have been written
and pictured about him, in the language that the General Reader
understands. They are as follows: "The American Beaver and His
Works," Lewis H. Morgan (1868); "The Romance of the Beaver," A. R.
Dugmore (no date); "History and Traditions of the Canada Beaver,"
H. T. Martin (1892).
"Clever Hans," the "Thinking Horse." From 1906 to 1910 the world
read much about a wonderful educated horse owned and educated by
Herr von Osten, in Germany. The German scientists who first came
in touch with "Hans" were quite bowled over by the discovery that
that one horse could "think." The _Review of Reviews_ said,
in 1910:
"It may be recalled that Clever Hans knew figures and letters,
colors and tones, the calendar and the dial, that he could count
and read, deal with decimals and fractions, spell out answers to
questions with his right hoof, and recognize people from having
seen their photographs. In every case his 'replies' were given in
the form of scrapings with his right forehoof.
"Whether the questioner was von Osten, who had worked with him for
seven years, or a man like Schillings, who was a complete
stranger, seemed immaterial; and this went farthest, perhaps, in
disposing of all talk of 'collusion' between master and beast."
Now, by the bald records of the case the fact was fixed for all
time that Hans was the most wonderful mental prodigy that ever
bore the form of a four-footed animal. His learning and his
performances were astounding, and even uncanny. I do not care how
he was trained, nor by what process he received ideas and reacted
to them! He was a phenomenon, and I doubt whether this world ever
sees his like again. His mastery of figures alone, no matter how
it was wrought, was enough to make any animal or trainer
illustrious.
But eventually Clever Hans came to grief. He was ostensibly
thrown off his pedestal, in Germany, by human jealousy and
egotism. Several industrious German scientists deliberately set
to work to discredit him, and they stuck to it until they
accomplished that task. The chief instrument in this was no less a
man than the director of the "Psychological Institute" of the
Berlin University, Professor Otto Pfungst. He found that when Hans
was put on the witness stand and subjected to rigid cross
examinations _by strangers_, his answers were due partly to
_telepathy and hypnotic influence_! For example, the
discovery was made that Hans could not always give the correct
answer to a problem in figures unless it was known to the
questioner himself.
To Hans's inquisitors this discovery imparted a terrible shock. It
did not look like "thinking" after all! The mental process was
_different_ from the process of the German mind! The
wonderful fact that Hans could remember and recognize and
_reproduce_ the ten digits was entirely lost to view. At once
a shout went up all over Germany,--in the scientific circle, that
Hans was an "impostor," that he could not "think," and that his
mind was nothing much after all.
Poor Hans! The glory that should have been his, and imperishable,
is gone. He was the victim of scientists of one idea, who had no
sense of proportion. He truly WAS a thinking horse; and we are
sure that there are millions of men whose minds could not be
developed to the point that the mind of that "dumb" animal
attained,--no, not even with the aid of hypnotism and telepathy.
The bare fact that a horse _can_ be influenced by occult
mental powers proves the close parallelism that exists between the
brains of men and beasts. The Trap-Door Spider. Let no one
suppose for one moment that animal mind and intelligence is
limited to the brain-bearing vertebrates. The scope and activity
of the notochord in some of the invertebrates present phenomena
far more wonderful per capita than many a brain produces.
Interesting books have been written, and more will be written
hereafter, on the minds and doings of ants, bees, wasps, spiders
and other insects.
Consider the ways and means of the ant-lion of the East, and the
trap-door spider of the western desert regions. As one object
lesson from the insect world, I will flash upon the screen, for a
moment only, the trap-door spider. This wonderful insect personage
has been exhaustively studied by Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars, in the
development of a series of moving pictures, and at my request he
has contributed the following graphic description of this
spider's wonderful work.
"The trap-door spiders, inhabiting the warmer portions of both the
Old and New Worlds, dig a deep tunnel in the soil, line this with
a silken wallpaper, then construct a hinged door at the top so
perfectly fitted and camouflaged with soil, that when it is closed
there is no indication of the burrow. Moreover, the inside portion
of the door of some species is so constructed that it may be
"latched," there being two holes near the edge, precisely placed
where the curved fangs may be inserted and the door held firmly
closed. Also, the trap-door of a number of species is so designed
as to be absolutely rain-proof, being bevelled and as accurately
fitting a corresponding bevel of the tube as the setting of a
compression valve of a gasolene engine.
[Illustration: THE TRAP-DOOR
SPIDER'S DOOR AND BURROW By R. L. Ditmars 1. The door closed. Its
top carefully counterfeits the surrounding ground. 2. The door
with silken hinge, held open by a needle. 3. The spider in its
doorway, looking for prey. 4. Section of the burrow and trap-
door.]
"The study of a number of specimens of our southern California
species, which builds the cork-type door, including observations
of them at night, when they are particularly active, indicates
that the construction of the tube involves other material than the
silken lining employed by many burrowing spiders. In the
excavation of the tube and retention of the walls, the spider
appears to employ a glairy substance, which thoroughly saturates
the soil and renders the interior of the tube of almost cement-
like hardness. It is then plastered with a thick jet of silk from
the spinning glands. This interior finishing process appears to
be quite rapid, a burrow being readily lined within a couple of
hours.
"The construction of the trap-door is a far more complicated
process, this convex, beautifully bevelled entrance with its hinge
requiring real scientific skill. Judging from observations on a
number of specimens, the work is done from the outside, the spider
first spinning a net-like covering over the mouth of the tube.
This is thickened by weaving the body over the net, each motion
leaving a smoky trail of silk. Earth is then shoveled into the
covering, the spider carefully pushing the particles toward the
centre, which soon sags, and assumes the proper curvature, and
automatically moulds against the bevelled walls of the tube.
"The shoveling process must be nicely regulated to produce the
proper bevel and thickness of the door. Then the cementing
process is applied to the top, rendering the door a solid unit.
From the actions of these spiders,--which often calmly rest an
hour without a move,--it appears that the edges of the door are
now subjected, by the stout and sharp fangs, to a cutting process
like that of a can opener, leaving a portion of the marginal silk
to act as a hinge. This hinge afterward receives some finishing
touches, and the top of the door is either pebbled or finished
with a few fragments of dead vegetation, cemented on, in order to
exactly match the surrounding soil."
V
THE RIGHTS OF WILD ANIMALS
Every harmless wild bird and mammal has the right to live out its
life according to its destiny; and man is in honor bound to
respect those rights. At the same time it is a mistake to regard
each wild bird or quadruped as a sacred thing, which under no
circumstances may be utilized by man. We are not fanatical Hindus
of the castes which religiously avoid the "taking of life" of any
kind, and gently push aside the flea, the centipede and the
scorpion. The reasoning powers of such people are strictly
limited, the same as those of people who are opposed to the
removal by death of the bandits and murderers of the human race.
The highest duty of a reasoning being is to reason. We have no
moral or legal right to act like idiots, or to become a menace to
society by protecting criminal animals or criminal men from
adequate punishment. Like the tree that is known by its fruit,
every alleged "reasoning being" is to be judged by the daily
output of his thoughts.
Toward wild life, our highest duty is to be sane and sensible, in
order to be just, and to promote the greatest good for the
greatest number. Be neither a Hindu fanatic nor a cruel game-
butcher like a certain wild-animal slaughterer whom I knew, who
while he was on earth earned for himself a place in the hottest
corner of the hereafter, and quickly passed on to occupy it.
The following planks constitute a good platform on which to base
our relations with the wild animal world, and by which to regulate
our duty to the creatures that have no means of defense against
the persecutions of cruel men. They may be regarded as
representing the standards that have been fixed by enlightened and
humane civilization.
THE WILD ANIMALS' BILL OF RIGHTS
This Bill of Rights is to be copied and displayed conspicuously
in all zoological parks and gardens, zoos and menageries; in all
theatres and shows where animal performances are given, and in all
places where wild animals and birds are trained, sold or kept for
the pleasure of their owners.
Article 1. In view of the nearness of the approach of the higher
animals to the human level, no just and humane man can deny that
those wild animals have certain rights which man is in honor bound
to respect.
Art. 2. The fact that God gave man "dominion over the beasts of
the field" does not imply a denial of animal rights, any more than
the supremacy of a human government conveys the right to oppress
and maltreat its citizens.
Art. 3. Under certain conditions it is justifiable for man to kill
a limited number of the so-called game animals, on the same basis
of justification that domestic animals and fowls may be killed for
food.
Art. 4. While the trapping of fur-bearing animals is a necessary
evil, that evil must be minimized by reducing the sufferings of
trapped animals to the lowest possible point, and by preventing
wasteful trapping.
Art. 5. The killing of harmless mammals or birds solely for
"sport," and without utilizing them when killed, is murder; and no
good and humane man will permit himself to engage in any such
offenses against good order and the rights of wild creatures.
Art. 6. Shooting at sea-going creatures from moving vessels,
without any possibility of securing them if killed or wounded, is
cruel, reprehensible, and criminal, and everywhere should be
forbidden by ship captains, and also by law, under penalties.
Art. 7. The extermination of a harmless wild animal species is a
crime; but the regulated destruction of wild pests that have been
proven guilty, is sometimes necessary and justifiable.
Art. 8. No group or species of birds or mammals that is accused of
offenses sufficiently grave to merit destruction shall be
condemned undefended and unheard, nor without adequate evidence of
a character which would be acceptable in a court of law.
Art. 9. The common assumption that every bird or mammal that
offends, or injures the property of any man, is necessarily
deserving of death, is absurd and intolerable. The death penalty
should be the last resort, not the first one!
Art. 10. Any nation that fails adequately to protect its crop-and-
tree-protecting birds deserves to have its fields and forests
devastated by predatory insects.
Art. 11. No person has any moral right to keep a wild mammal,
bird, reptile or fish in a state of uncomfortable, unhappy or
miserable captivity, and all such practices should be prevented by
law, under penalty. It is entirely feasible for a judge to
designate a competent person as a referee to examine and decide
upon each case.
Art. 12. A wild creature that cannot be kept in comfortable
captivity should not be kept at all; and the evils to be guarded
against are cruelly small quarters, too much darkness, too much
light, uncleanliness, bad odors, and bad food. A fish in a glass
globe, or a live bird in a cage the size of a collar-box is a case
of cruelty.
Art. 13. Every captive animal that is suffering hopelessly from
disease or the infirmities of old age has the right to be
painlessly relieved of the burdens of life.
Art. 14. Every keeper or owner of a captive wild animal who
through indolence, forgetfulness or cruelty permits a wild
creature in his charge to perish of cold, heat, hunger or thirst
because of his negligence, is guilty of a grave misdemeanor, and
he should be punished as the evidence and the rights of captive
animals demand.
Art. 15. An animal in captivity has a right to do all the damage
to its surroundings that it can do, and it is not to be punished
therefor.
Art. 16. The idea that all captive wild animals are necessarily
"miserable" is erroneous, because some captive animals are better
fed, better protected and are more happy in captivity than similar
animals are in a wild state, beset by dangers and harassed by
hunger and thirst. It is the opinion of the vast majority of
civilized people that there is no higher use to which a wild bird
or mammal can be devoted than to place it in perfectly comfortable
captivity to be seen by millions of persons who desire to make
its acquaintance.
Art. 17. About ninety-five per cent of all the wild mammals seen
in captivity were either born in captivity or captured when in
their infancy, and therefore have no ideas of freedom, or visions
of their wild homes; consequently their supposed "pining for
freedom" often is more imaginary than real.
Art. 18. A wild animal has no more inherent right to live a life
of lazy and luxurious ease, and freedom from all care, than a man
or woman has to live without work or family cares. In the large
cities of the world there are many millions of toiling humans who
are worse off per capita as to burdens and sorrows and joys than
are the beasts and birds in a well kept zoological park. "Freedom"
is comparative only, not absolute.
Art. 19. While the use of trained animals in stage performances
is not necessarily cruel, and while training operations are based
chiefly upon kindness and reward, it is necessary that vigilance
should be exercised to insure that the cages and stage quarters of
such animals shall be adequate in size, properly lighted and
acceptably ventilated, and that cruel punishments shall not be
inflicted upon the animals themselves.
Art. 20. The training of wild animals may, or may not, involve
cruelties, according to the intelligence and the moral status of
the trainer. This is equally true of the training of children, and
the treatment of wives and husbands. A reasonable blow with a
whip to a mean and refractory animal in captivity is not
necessarily an act of cruelty. Every such act must be judged
according to the evidence.
Art. 21. It is unjust to proclaim that "all wild animal
performances are cruel" and therefore should be prohibited by law.
The claim is untrue, and no lawmaker should pay heed to it. Wild
animal performances are no more cruel or unjust than men-and-women
performances of acrobatics. Practically all trained animals are
well fed and tended, they welcome their performances, and go
through them with lively interest. Such performances, when good,
have a high educational value,--but not to closed minds.
Art. 22. Every bull-fight, being brutally unfair to the horses and
the bull engaged and disgustingly cruel, is an unfit spectacle for
humane and high-minded people, and no Christian man or woman can
attend one without self-stultification.
Art. 23. The western practice of "bulldogging," now permitted in
some Wild West shows, is disgusting, degrading, and never should
be permitted.
Art. 24. The use of monkeys by organ-grinders is cruel, it is
degrading to the monkeys, and should in all states be prohibited
by law.
Art. 25. The keeping of live fishes in glass globes nearly always
ends in cruelty and suffering, and should everywhere be prohibited
by law. A round glass straight-jacket is just as painful as any
other kind.
Art. 26. The sale and use of chained live chameleons as ornaments
and playthings for idiotic or vicious men and children always
means death by slow torture for the reptile, and should in all
states be prohibited by law.
II. MENTAL TRAITS OF WILD ANIMALS
VI
THE BRIGHTEST MINDS AMONG AMERICAN ANIMALS
We repeat that _the most interesting features of a wild animal
are its mind, its thoughts, and the results of its reasoning._
Besides these, its classification, distribution and anatomy are of
secondary importance; but at the same time they help to form the
foundation on which to build the psychology of species and
individuals. Let no student make the mistake of concluding that
when he has learned an animal's place in nature there is nothing
more to pursue.
After fifty years of practical experience with wild animals of
many species, I am reluctantly compelled to give the prize for
greatest cunning and foresight _in self-preservation_ to the
common brown rat,--the accursed "domestic" rat that has adopted
man as his perpetual servant, and regards man's goods as his
lawful prey. When all other land animals have been exterminated
from the earth, the brown rat will remain, to harry and to rob the
Last Man.
The brown rat has persistently accompanied man all over the world.
Millions have been spent in fighting him and the bubonic-plague
flea that he cheerfully carries in his offensive fur. For him no
place _that contains food_ is too hot or too cold, too wet or
too dry. Many old sailors claim to believe that rats will desert
at the dock an outward-bound ship that is fated to be lost at sea;
but that certificate of superhuman foreknowledge needs a backing
of evidence before it can be accepted.
Of all wild animals, rats do the greatest number of "impossible"
things. We have matched our wits against rat cunning until a
madhouse yawned before us. Twice in my life all my traps and
poisons have utterly failed, and left me faintly asking:
_Are_ rats possessed of occult powers? Once the answer to
that was furnished by an old he-one who left his tail in my steel
trap, but a little later _caught himself_ in a trap-like
space in the back of the family aeolian, and ignominiously died
there,--a victim of his own error in judging distances without a
tape line.
Tomes might be written about the minds and manners of the brown
rat, setting forth in detail its wonderful intelligence in quickly
getting wise to new food, new shelter, new traps and new poisons.
Six dead rats are, as a rule, sufficient to put any _new_
trap out of business; but poisons and infections go farther before
being found out. [Footnote: For home use, my best rat weapon is
rough-on-rats, generously mixed with butter and spread liberally
on very thin slices of bread. It has served me well in effecting
clearances.]
The championship for keen strategy in self-preservation belongs to
the musk-oxen for their wolf-proof circle of heads and horns.
Every musk-ox herd is a mutual benefit life insurance company.
When a gaunt and hungry wolf-pack appears, the adult bull and cow
musk-oxen at once form a close circle, with the calves and young
stock in the centre. That deadly ring of lowered heads and sharp
horns, all hung precisely right to puncture and deflate hostile
wolves, is impregnable to fang and claw. The arctic wolves know
this well. Mr. Stefansson says it is the settled habit of wolf
packs of Banks Land to pass musk-ox herds without even provoking
them to "fall in" for defense.
Judging by the facts that Charles L. Smith and the Norboe brothers
related to Mr. Phillips and me around our camp-fires in the
Canadian Rockies, the wolverine is one of the most cunning wild
animals of all North America. This is a large order; for the gray
wolf and grizzly bear are strong candidates for honors in that
contest.
The greatest cunning of the wolverine is manifested in robbing
traps, stealing the trapper's food and trap-baits, and at the same
time avoiding the traps set for him. He is wonderfully expert in
springing steel traps for the bait or prey there is in them,
without getting caught himself. He will follow up a trap line for
miles, springing all traps and devouring all baits as he goes.
Sometimes in sheer wantonness he will throw a trap into a river,
and again he will bury a trap in deep snow. Dead martens in traps
are savagely torn from them. Those that can not be eaten on the
spot are carried off and skilfully cached under two or three feet
of snow.
Trapper Smith once set a trap for a wolverine, and planted close
behind it a young moose skull with some flesh upon it. The
wolverine came in the night, started at a point well away from the
trap, dug a tunnel through six feet of snow, fetched up well
behind the trap,--and triumphantly dragged away the head through
his tunnel.
From the testimony of W. H. Wright, of Spokane, in his interesting
book on "The Grizzly Bear," and for other reasons, I am convinced
that the Rocky Mountain silver-tip grizzly is our brightest North
American animal, and very keen of nose, eye, ear and brain. Mr.
Wright says that "the grizzly bear far excels in cunning any other
animal found throughout the Rocky Mountains, and, for that matter,
he far excels them all combined." While the last clause is a large
order, I will not dispute the opinion of a man of keen
intelligence who has lived much among the most important and
interesting wild animals of the Rockies.
In the Bitter Root Mountains Mr. Wright and his hunting party once
set a bear trap for a grizzly, in a pen of logs, well baited with
fresh meat. On the second day they found the pen demolished, the
bait taken out, and everything that was movable piled on the top
of the trap.
The trap was again set, this time loosely, under a bed of moss.
The grizzly came and joyously ate all the meat that was scattered
around the trap, but the moss and the trap were left untouched.
And then followed a major operation in bear trapping. A mile away
there was a steep slope of smooth rock, bounded at its foot by a
creek. On one side was a huge tangle of down timber, on the other
side loomed some impassable rocks; and a tiny meadow sloped away
at the top. The half-fleshed carcasses of two dead elk were thrown
half way down the rock slide, to serve as a bait. On the two sides
two bear guns were set, and to their triggers were attached two
long silk fish-lines, stretched taut and held parallel to each
other, extending across the rocky slope. The idea was that the
bear could not by any possibility reach the bait from above or
below, without setting off at least one gun, and getting a bullet
through his shoulders.
On the first night, no guns went off. The next morning it was
found that the bear had crossed the stream and climbed straight up
toward the bait until he reached the first fish-line; where he
stopped. Without pressing the string sufficiently to set off its
gun, he followed it to the barrier of trees. Being balked there,
he turned about, retraced his steps carefully and followed the
string to the barrier of rocks. Being blocked there, he back-
tracked down the slide and across the stream, over the way he
came. Then he widely circled the whole theatre, and came down
toward the bait from the little meadow at its top of the slide.
Presently he reached the upper fish-line, twelve feet away from
the first one. First he followed this out to the log barrier, then
back to the rock ledge that was supposed to be unclimbable. There
he scrambled up the "impossible" rocks, negotiated the ledge foot
by foot, and successfully got around the end of line No. 2.
Getting between the two lines he sailed out across the slope to
the elk carcasses, feasted sumptuously, and then meandered out
the way he came, without having disturbed a soul.
All this was done at night, and in darkness; and presumably that
bear is there to this day, alive and well. No wonder Mr. Wright
has a high opinion of the grizzly bear as a thinking animal.
In hiding their homes and young, either in burrows or in nests on
the ground, wild rabbits and hares are wonderfully skilful, even
under new conditions. Being quite unable to fight, or even to dig
deeply, they are wholly dependent upon their wits in keeping their
young alive by hiding them. Thanks to their keenness in
concealment, the gray rabbit is plentiful throughout the eastern
United States in spite of its millions of enemies. Is it not
wonderful? The number killed by hunters last year in Pennsylvania
was about 3,500,000!
The most amazing risk that I ever saw taken by a rabbit was made
by a gray rabbit that nested in a shallow hole in the middle of a
lawn-mower lawn east of the old National Museum building in
Washington. The hollow was like that of a small wash-basin, and
when at rest in it with her young ones the neutral gray back of
the mother came just level with the top of the ground. At the
last, when her young were almost large enough to get out and go
under their own steam, a lawn-mower artist chanced to look down
at the wrong moment and saw the family. Evidently that mother
believed that the boldest ventures are those most likely to win.
Among the hoofed and horned animals of North America the white-
tailed deer is the shrewdest in the recognition of its enemies,
the wisest in the choice of cover, and in measures for self-
preservation. It seems at first glance that the buck is more keen-
witted than the doe; but this is a debatable question. Throughout
the year the buck thinks only of himself. During fully one-half
the year the doe is burdened by the cares of motherhood, and the
paramount duty of saving her fawns from their numerous enemies.
This, I am quite sure, is the handicap which makes it so much
easier to kill a doe in the autumn hunting season than to bag a
fully antlered and sophisticated buck who has only himself to
consider.
The white-tailed deer saves its life by skulking low in timber and
thick brush. This is why it so successfully resists the
extermination that has almost swept the mule deer, antelope,
white goat, moose and elk from all the hunting-grounds of the
United States. Thanks to its alertness in seeing its enemies
first, its skill and quickness in hiding, _and its mental
keenness in recognizing and using deer sanctuaries,_ the white-
tailed or "Virginia" deer will outlive all the other hoofed
animals of North America. In Pennsylvania they know enough to rush
for the wire-bounded protected area whenever the hunters appear.
That state has twenty-six such deer sanctuaries,--well filled
with deer.
The moose and caribou dwell upon open or half-open ground, and are
at the mercy of the merciless long-range rifles. Their keenness
does not count much against rifles that can shoot and kill at a
quarter of a mile. In the rutting season the bull moose of Maine
or New Brunswick is easily deceived by the "call" of a birch-bark
megaphone in the hands of a moose hunter who imitates the love
call of the cow moose so skilfully that neither moose nor man can
detect the falsity of the lure.
The mountain sheep is wide-eyed, alert and ready to run, but he
dwells in exposed places from the high foothills up to the
mountain summits, and now even the most bungling hunter can find
him and kill him at long range. In the days of black powder and
short ranges the sheep had a chance to escape; but now he has none
whatever. He has keener vision and more alertness than the goat,
but as a real life-saving factor that amounts to nothing! Wild
sheep are easily and quickly exterminated.
The mountain goat has no protection except elevation and
precipitous rocks, and to the hunter who has the energy to climb
up to him he, too, is easy prey. Usually his biped enemy finds him
and attacks him in precipitous mountains, where running and hiding
are utterly impossible. When discovered on a ledge two feet wide
leading across the face of a precipice, poor Billy has nothing to
do but to take the bullets as they come until he reels and falls
far down to the cruel slide-rock. He has a wonderful mind, but its
qualities and its usefulness belong in Chapter XIII.
Warm-Coated Animals Avoid "Fresh Air." On this subject there is a
strange divergence of reasoning power between the wild animals of
cold countries and the sleeping-porch advocates of today.
Even the most warm-coated of the fur-bearing animals, such as the
bears, foxes, beavers, martens and mink, and also the burrowing
rodents, take great pains to den up in winter just as far from the
"fresh air" of the cold outdoors as they can attain by deep
denning or burrowing. The prairie-dog not only ensconces himself
in a cul-de-sac at the end of a hole fourteen feet deep and long,
but as winter sets in he also tightly plugs up the mouth of his
den with moist earth. When sealed up in his winter den the black
bear of the north draws his supply of fresh air through a hole
about one inch in diameter, or less.
But the human devotees of fresh air reason in the opposite
direction. It is now the regular thing for mothers to open wide to
the freezing air of out-doors either one or all the windows of the
rooms in which their children sleep, giving to each child enough
fresh air to supply ten full-grown elephants, or twenty head of
horses. And the final word is the "sleeping-porch!" It matters not
how deadly damp is the air along with its 33 degrees of cold, or
the velocity of the wind, the fresh air must be delivered. The
example of the fat and heavily furred wild beast is ignored; and I
just wonder how many people in the United States, old and young,
have been killed, or permanently injured, by fresh air, during the
last fifteen years.
And furthermore. Excepting the hoofed species, it is the universal
rule of the wild animals of the cold-winter zones of the earth
that the mother shall keep her helpless young close beside her in
the home nest and keep them warm partly by the warmth of her own
body. The wild fur-clad mother does not maroon her helpless
offspring in an isolated cot in a room apart, upon a thin mattress
and in an atmosphere so cold that it is utterly impossible for the
poor little body and limbs to warm it and keep it warm. Yet many
human mothers do just that, and some take good care to provide a
warmer atmosphere for themselves than they joyously force upon
their helpless infants.
No dangerous fads should be forced upon defenseless children or
animals.
A proper amount of fresh air is very desirable, but the intake of
a child is much less than that of an elephant. Besides, if Nature
had intended that men should sleep outdoors in winter, with the
moose and caribou, we would have been furnished with ruminant
pelage and fat.
VII
KEEN BIRDS AND DULL MEN
If all men could know how greatly the human species varies from
highest to lowest, and how the minds and emotions of the lowest
men parallel and dove-tail with those of the highest quadrupeds
and birds, we might be less obsessed with our own human ego, and
more appreciative of the intelligence of animals.
A thousand times in my life my blood has been brought to the
boiling point by seeing or reading of the cruel practices of
ignorant and vicious men toward animals whom they despised because
of their alleged standing "below man." By his vicious and cruel
nature, many a man is totally unfitted to own, or even to
associate with, dogs, horses and monkeys. Many persons are born
into the belief that every man is necessarily a "lord of
creation," and that all animals per se are man's lawful prey. In
the vicious mind that impression increases with age. Minds of the
better classes can readily learn by precept or by reasoning from
cause to effect the duty of man to observe and defend the God-
given rights of animals.
It was very recently that I saw on the street a group that
represented man's attitude toward wild animals. It consisted of
an unclean and vicious-looking man in tramp's clothing, grinding
an offensive hand-organ and domineering over a poor little
terrorized "ringtail" monkey. The wretched mite from the jungle
was encased in a heavy woolen straight-jacket, and there was a
strap around its loins to which a stout cord was attached, running
to the Root of All Evil. The pavement was hot, but there with its
bare and tender feet on the hot concrete, the sad-eyed little waif
painfully moved about, peering far up into the faces of passers-by
for sympathy, but all the time furtively and shrinkingly watching
its tormentor. Every now and then the hairy old tramp would jerk
the monkey's cord, each time giving the frail creature a violent
bodily wrench from head to foot. I think that string was jerked
about forty times every hour.
And that exhibition of monkey torture in a monkey hell continues
in summer throughout many states of our country,--because "it
pleases the children!" The use of monkeys with hand-organs is a
cruel outrage upon the monkey tribe, and no civilized state or
municipality should tolerate it. I call upon all humane persons to
put an end to it.
As an antidote to our vaulting human egotism, we should think
often upon the closeness of mental contact between the highest
animals and the lowest men. In drawing a parallel between those
two groups, there are no single factors more valuable than the
home, and the family food supply. These hark back to the most
primitive instincts of the vertebrates. They are the bedrock
foundations upon which every species rests. As they are stable or
unstable, good or bad, so lives or dies the individual, and the
species also.
In employing the term "highest animals" I wish to be understood as
referring to the warm-blooded vertebrates, and not merely the apes
and monkeys that both structurally and mentally are nearest to
man.
Throughout my lifetime I have been by turns amazed, entertained
and instructed by the marvelous intelligence and mechanical skill
of small mammals in constructing burrows, and of certain birds in
the construction of their nests. Today the hanging nest of the
Baltimore oriole is to me an even greater wonder than it was when
I first saw one over sixty years ago. Even today the mechanical
skill involved in its construction is beyond my comprehension. My
dull brain can not figure out the processes by which the bird
begins to weave its hanging purse at the tip end of the most
unstable of all earthly building sites,--a down-hanging elm-tree
branch that is swayed to and fro by every passing breeze. The
situation is so "impossible" that thus far no moving picture
artist has ever caught and recorded the process.
Take in your hand a standard oriole nest, and examine it
thoroughly. First you will note that it is very strong, and
thoroughly durable. It can stand the lashings of the fiercest
gales that visit our storm-beaten shore.
How long would it take a man to unravel that nest, wisp by wisp,
and resolve it into a loose pile of materials? Certainly not less
than an entire day. Do you think that even your skilful fingers,--
unassisted by needles,--could in two days, or in three, weave of
those same materials a nest like that, that would function as did
the original? I doubt it. The materials consist of long strips of
the thin inner bark of trees, short strings, and tiny grass stems
that are long, pliable and tough. Who taught the oriole how to
find and to weave those rare and hard-to-find materials? And how
did it manage all that weaving with its beak only? Let the wise
ones answer, if they can; for I confess that I can not!
Down in Venezuela, in the delta of the Orinoco River, and
elsewhere, lives a black and yellow bird called the giant cacique
(pronounced cay-seek'), which as a nest-builder far surpasses our
oriole. Often the cacique's hanging nest is from four to six feet
long. The oriole builds to escape the red squirrels, but the
cacique has to reckon with the prehensile-tailed monkeys.
Sometimes a dozen caciques will hang their nests in close
proximity to a wasps' nest, as if for additional protection. A
cacique's nest hangs like a grass rope, with a commodious purse at
its lower end, entered by a narrow perpendicular slit a foot or so
above the terminal facilities. It is impossible to achieve one of
these nests without either shooting off the limb to which it
hangs, or felling the tree. If it hangs low enough a charge of
coarse shot usually will cut the limb, but if high, cutting it down
with a rifle bullet is a more serious matter.
[Illustration with caption: HANGING NEST OF THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE
(From the "American Natural History")]
[Illustration with caption: GREAT HANGING NESTS OF THE CRESTED
CACIQUE As seen in the delta of the Orinoco Rover, Venezuela.]
To our Zoological Park visitors the African weaver birds are a
wonder and a delight. Orioles and caciques do not build nests in
captivity, but the weavers blithely transfer their activities to
their spacious cage in our tropical-bird house. The bird-men keep
them supplied with raffia grass, and they do the rest. Fortunately
for us, they weave nests for fun, and work at it all the year
round! Millions of visitors have watched them doing it. To
facilitate their work the upper half of their cage is judiciously
supplied with tree-branches of the proper size and architectural
slant. The weaving covers many horizontal branches. Sometimes a
group of nests will be tied together in a structure four feet
long; and it branches up, or down, or across, seemingly without
rhyme or reason.
Some of the weavers, which inhabit Africa, Malayana and Australia,
are "communal" nest-builders. They build colonies of nests, close
together. Imagine twenty-five or more Baltimore orioles massing
their nests together on one side of a single tree, in a genuine
village. That is the habit of some of the weaver birds;--and this
brings us to what is called the most wonderful of all
manifestations of house-building intelligence among birds. It is
the community house of the little sociable weaver-bird of South
Africa (_Philetoerus socius_). Having missed seeing the work
of this species save in museums, I will quote from the Royal
Natural History, written by the late Dr. Richard Lydekker, an
excellent description: --This species congregates in large flocks,
many pairs incubating their eggs under the same roof, which is
composed of cartloads of grass piled on a branch of some camel-
thorn tree in one enormous mass of an irregular umbrella shape,
looking like a miniature haystack and almost solid, but with the
under surface (which is nearly flat) honeycombed all over with
little cavities, which serve not only as places for incubation,
but also as a refuge against rain and wind.
"They are constantly being repaired by their active little
inhabitants. It is curious that even the initiated eye is
constantly being deceived by these dome-topped structures, since
at a distance they closely resemble native huts. The nesting-
chambers themselves are warmly lined with feathers."
Here must we abruptly end our exhibits of the intelligence of a
few humble little birds as fairly representative of the wonderful
mental ability and mechanical skill so common in the ranks of the
birds of the world. It would be quite easy to write a volume on
The Architectural Skill of Birds!
Now, let us look for a moment into the house-building intelligence
and skill of some of the lower tribes of men. Out of the multitude
of exhibits available I will limit myself to three, widely
separated. In the first place, the habitations of the savage and
barbaric tribes are usually the direct result of their own mental
and moral deficiencies. The Eskimo is an exception, because his
home and its location are dictated by the hard and fierce
circumstances which dictate to him what he must do. Often he is
compelled to move as his food supply moves. The Cliff-Dweller
Indian of the arid regions of the Southwest was forced to cliff-
dwell, in order to stave off extermination by his enemies. Under
that spur he became a wonderful architect and engineer.
For present purposes we are concerned with three savage tribes
which might have been rich and prosperous agriculturists or
herdsmen had they developed sufficient intelligence to see the
wisdom of regular industry.
Consider first the lowest of three primitive tribes that inhabit
the extreme southern point of Patagonia, whose real estate
holdings front on the Strait of Magellan. That region is treeless,
rocky, windswept, cold and inhospitable. I can not imagine a place
better fitted for an anarchist penal colony. North of it lie
plains less rigorous, and by degrees less sterile, and finally
there are lands quite habitable by cattle-and-crop-growing men.
But those three tribes elect to stick to the worst spot in South
America. The most primitive is the tribe of "canoe Indians" of
Tierra del Fuego, which probably represents the lowest rung of the
human ladder. Beside them the cave men of 30,000 years ago were
kings and princes. Their only rivals seem to be the Poonans of
Central Borneo, who, living in a hot country, make no houses or
shelters of any kind, and have no clothing but a long strip of
bark cloth around the loins.
The Fuegians have long been known to mariners and travellers. They
inhabit a region that half the year is bleak, cold and raw, but
they make nothing save the rudest of the rude in canoes--of rough
slabs tied together and caulked _with moss,_--and rough bone-
pointed spears, bows, arrows and paddles. Their only clothing
consists of skins of the guanacos loosely hung from the neck, and
flapping over the naked and repulsive body. They make no houses,
and on shore their only shelters from the wind and snow and
chilling rains are rabbit-like forms of brush, broken off by hand.
These people are lower in the scale of intelligence than any wild
animal species known to me; for they are mentally too dull and low
to maintain themselves on a continuing basis. Their hundred years
of contact with man has taught them little; and numerically they
are decreasing so rapidly that the world will soon see the
absolute finish of the tribe.
In the best of the three tribes, the Tchuelclus, the birth rate is
so low that within recent times the tribe has diminished from
about 5,000 to a remnant of about 500.
Now, have those primitive creatures "immortal souls?" Are they
entitled to call chimpanzees, elephants, bears and dogs "lower
animals?" Do they "think," or "reason," any more than the animals
I have named?
It is a far cry from the highest to the lowest of the human race;
and we hold that the highest animals intellectually are higher
than the lowest men.
Now go with me for a moment to the lofty and dense tropical forest
in the heart of the Territory of Selangor, in the Malay Peninsula.
That forest is the home of the wild elephant, rhinoceros and
sladang. And there dwells a jungle tribe called the Jackoons, some
members of which I met at their family home, and observed
literally in their own ancestral tree. Their house was not wholly
bad, but it might have been 100 per cent better. It was merely a
platform of small poles, placed like a glorified bird's nest in
the spreading forks of a many-branched tree, about twenty feet
from the ground. The main supports were bark-lashed to the large
branches of the family tree. Over this there was a rude roof of
long grass, which had a fairly intelligent slope. As a shelter
from rain, the Jackoon house left much to be desired. The scanty
loin cloths of the habitants knew no such thing as wash-day or
line. With all its drawbacks, however, this habitation was far
more adequate to the needs of its builders than the cold brush
rabbit-forms of the Patagonian canoe Indians.
We now come to a tribe which has reduced the problem of housing
and home life to its lowest common denominator. The Poonans of
Central Borneo, discovered and described by Carl Bock, build _no
houses of any kind,_ not even huts of green branches; and their
only overture toward the promotion of personal comfort in the home
is a five-foot grass mat spread upon the sodden earth, to lie upon
when at rest. And this, in a country where in the so-called "dry
season" it rains half the time, and in the "wet season" all the
time.
The Poonans have rudely-made spears for taking the wild pig, deer
and smaller game, their clothes consist of bark cloth, around the
loins only. They know no such thing as agriculture, and they live
off the jungle.
It was said some years ago that a similarly primitive jungle tribe
of Ceylon, known as the Veddahs, could count no more than five,
that they could not comprehend "day after to-morrow," and that
their vocabulary was limited to about 200 words.
It is very probable that the language of the Poonans and the
Jackoons is equally limited. And what are we to conclude from
all the foregoing? Briefly, I should say that the architectural
skill of the orioles, the caciques and the weaver birds is greater
than that of the South Patagonia native, the Jackoon and the
Poonan. I should say that those bird homes yield to their makers
more comfort and protection, and a better birth-rate, than are
yielded by the homes of those ignorant, unambitious and
retrogressive tribes of men now living and thinking, and supposed
to be possessed of reasoning powers. If the whole truth could be
known, I believe it would be found that the stock of ideas
possessed and used by the groups of highly-endowed birds would
fully equal the ideas of such tribes of simple-minded men as those
mentioned. If caught young, those savages could be trained by
civilized men, and taught to perform many tricks, but so can
chimpanzees and elephants.
Curiously enough, it is a common thing for even the higher types
of civilized men to make in home-building just as serious mistakes
as are made by wild animals and savages. For example, among the
men of our time it is a common mistake to build in the wrong
place, to build entirely too large or too ugly, and to build a
Colossal Burden instead of a real Home. From many a palace there
stands forth the perpetual question: "_Why_ did he do it?"
Any reader who at any time inclines toward an opinion that the
author is unduly severe on the mentality of the human race, even
as it exists today in the United States, is urged to read in the
_Scientific Monthly_ for January, 1922, an article by
Professor L. M. Tennan entitled "Adventures in Stupidity.--A
Partial Analysis of the Intellectual Inferiority of a College
Student." He should particularly note the percentages on page 34
in the second paragraph under the subtitle "The Psychology of
Stupidity."
VIII
THE MENTAL STATUS OF THE ORANG-UTAN
My first ownership of a live orang-utan began in 1878, in the
middle of the Simujan River, Borneo, where for four Spanish
dollars I became the proud possessor of a three-year old male. No
sooner was the struggling animal deposited in the bottom of my own
boat than it savagely seized the calf of my devoted leg and
endeavored to bite therefrom a generous cross section. My leggings
and my leech stockings saved my life. That implacable little beast
never gave up; and two days later it died,--apparently to spite
me.
My next orang was a complete reverse of No. 1. He liked not the
Dyaks who brought him to me, but in the first moment of our
acquaintance he adopted me as his foster-father, and loved me like
a son. Throughout four months of jungle vicissitudes he stuck to
me. He was a high-class orang,--and be it known that many orangs
are thin-headed scrubs, who never amount to anything. His skull
was wide, his face was broad, and he had a dome of thought like a
statesman. He had a fine mind, and I am sure I could have taught
him everything that any ape could learn.
During the four months that he lived with me I taught him, almost
without effort, many things that were necessary in our daily life.
Even the Dyaks recognized the fact that the "Old Man" was an orang
(or "mias") of superior mind, and some of them traveled far to see
him. Unfortunately the exigencies of travel and work compelled me
to present him to an admiring friend in India. Mr. Andrew Carnegie
and his then partner, Mr. J. W. Vandevorst, convoyed my Old Man
and another small orang from Singapore to Colombo, Ceylon, whence
they were shipped on to Madras, received there by my old friend A.
G. R. Theobald,--and presented at the court of the Duke of
Buckingham.
Up to a comparatively recent date, the studies of the
psychologists that have been devoted to the minds of animals below
man, have been chiefly concerned with low and common types.
Comparatively few investigators have found it possible to make
extensive and prolonged observations of the most intelligent wild
animals of the world, even in zoological gardens, and their
observations on wild animals in a state of nature seem to have
been even more circumscribed. I know only three who have studied
any of the great apes.
In attempting to fathom the mental capacity and the mental
processes of some of the highest mammals, there is the same
superior degree of interest attaching to the study of wild species
that the ethnologist finds in the study of savage races of men
that have been unspoiled by civilization. Obviously, it is more
interesting to fathom the mind of a creature in an absolute state
of nature than of one whose ancestors have been bred and reared in
the trammels of domestication and for many successive generations
have bowed to the will of man. The natural fury of the Atlantic
walrus, when attacked, is much more interesting as a psychologic
study than is the inbred rage of the bull-dog; and the remarkable
defensive tactics of the musk-ox far surpass in interest the
vagaries of range cattle.
For several reasons, the great apes, and particularly the
chimpanzees and orang-utans, are the most interesting subjects for
psychologic study of all the wild-animal species with which the
writer is acquainted. Primarily this is due to the fact that
intellectually and temperamentally, as well as anatomically,
these animals stand very near to man himself, and closely resemble
him. The great apes mentioned can give visible expression to a
wide range of thoughts and emotions,
The voice of the adult orang-utan is almost absent, and only
sufficient to display on rare occasions. What little there is of
it, in animals over six years of age, is very deep and guttural,
and may best be described as a deep-bass roar. Under excitement
the orang can produce a roar by inhalation. Young orangs under two
years of age often whine, or shriek or scream with anger, like
excited human children, but with their larger growth that vocal
power seems to leave them.
Despite the difference in temperament and quickness in delivery, I
regard the measure of the orang-utan's mental capacity as being
equal to that of the chimpanzee; but the latter is, and always
will remain, the more alert and showy animal. The superior feet of
the chimpanzee in bipedal work is for that species a great
advantage, and the longer toes of the orang are a handicap.
Although the orang's sanguine temperament is far more comforting
to a trainer than the harum-scarum nervous vivacity of the
chimpanzee, the value of the former is overbalanced, on the stage,
by the superior acting of the chimp. For these reasons the
trainers generally choose the chimp for stage education.
The chimpanzee is not only nervous and quick in thought and in
action, but it is equally so _in temper._ It will play with
any good friend to almost any extent, but the moment it suspects
malicious unfairness, or what it regards as a "mean trick," it
instantly becomes angry and resentful. Once when I attempted to
take from our large black-faced chimpanzee, called Soko, a small
lump of rubber which I feared she might swallow, my efforts were
kindly but firmly thwarted. At last, when I diverted her by small
offerings of chocolate, and at the right moment sought by a
strategic movement to snatch the rubber from her, the palpable
unfairness of the attempt caused the animal instantly to fly into
a towering passion, and seek to wreak vengeance upon me. Her lips
drew far back in a savage snarl, and she denounced my perfidy by
piercing cries of rage and indignation. She also did her utmost to
seize and drag me forcibly within reach of her teeth, for the
punishment which she felt that I deserved.
A large male orang-utan named Dohong, under a similar test,
revealed a very different mental attitude. He dexterously snatched
a valuable watch-charm from a visitor who stood inside the railing
of his cage, and fled with it to the top of his balcony. As
quickly as possible I thrust my handkerchief between the bars, and
waved it vigorously, to attract him. At once the animal came down
to me, to secure another trophy, and before he realized his
position I successfully snatched the charm from him, and restored
it unharmed to its owner. Dohong seemed to regard the episode as a
good joke. Without manifesting any resentment he turned a
somersault on his straw, then climbed upon his trapeze and began
to perform, as if nothing in particular had occurred.
The orang is distinctly an animal of more serene temper and more
philosophic mind than the chimpanzee. This has led some authors
erroneously to pronounce the orang an animal of morose and
sluggish disposition, and mentally inferior to the chimpanzee.
After a close personal acquaintance with about forty captive
orangs of various sizes, I am convinced that the facts do not
warrant that conclusion. The orang-utans of the New York
Zoological Park certainly have been as cheerful in disposition, as
fond of exercise and as fertile in droll performances as our
chimpanzees. Even though the mind of the chimpanzee does act more
quickly than that of its rival, and even though its movements are
usually more rapid and more precise, the mind of the orang carries
that animal precisely as far. Moreover, in its native jungles the
orang habitually builds for itself a very comfortable nest on
which to rest and sleep, which the chimpanzee ordinarily does not
do.
I think that the exact mental status of an anthropoid ape is best
revealed by an attempt to train it to do some particular thing, in
a manner that the trainer elects. Usually about five lessons,
carefully observed, will afford a good index of the pupil's mental
capabilities. Some chimpanzees are too nervous to be taught, some
are too obstinate, and others are too impatient of restraint. Some
orang-utans are hopelessly indifferent to the business in hand,
and refuse to become interested in it. I think that no orang is
too dull to learn to sit at a table, and eat with the utensils
that are usually considered sacred to man's use, but the majority
of them care only for the food, and take no interest in the
function. On the other hand, the average chimpanzee is as restless
as a newly-caught eel, and its mind is dominated by a desire to
climb far beyond the reach of restraining hands, and to do almost
anything save that which is particularly desired.
Among the twenty or more orangs which up to 1922 have been
exhibited in the Zoological Park, two stand out with special
prominence, by reason of their unusual mental qualities. They
differed widely from each other. One was a born actor and
imitator, who loved human partnership in his daily affairs. The
other was an original thinker and reasoner, with a genius for
invention, and at all times impatient of training and restraint.
The first was named Rajah, the latter was called Dohong.
Rajah was a male orang, and about four years of age when received
by us. His high and broad forehead, large eyes and general breadth
of cranium and jaw marked him at once as belonging to the higher
caste of orangs. Dealers and experts have no difficulty in
recognizing at one glance an orang that has a good brain and good
general physique from those which are thin-headed, narrow-jawed,
weak in body and unlikely to live long.
At the Zoological Park we have tested out the orang-utan's
susceptibility to training, and proven that the task is so simple
and easy that even amateurs can accomplish much in a short time.
Desiring that several of our orangs should perform in public, we
instructed the primate keepers to proceed along certain lines and
educate them to that idea. Naturally, the performance was laid out
to match our own possibilities. In a public park, where only a
very little time can be devoted to training, we do not linger long
over an animal that is either stupid or obstinate. Those which
cannot be trained easily and quickly are promptly set aside as
ineligible.
Without any great amount of labor, and with no real difficulty,
our orangs were trained to perform the following simple acts:
1. To sit at table, and eat and drink like humans. This involved
eating sliced bananas with a fork, pouring out milk from a teapot
into a teacup, drinking out of a teacup, drinking out of a beer-
bottle, using a toothpick, striking a match, lighting a cigarette,
smoking and spitting like a man.
2. To ride a tricycle, or bicycle.
3. To put on a pair of trousers, adjust the suspenders, put on a
sweater or coat, and a cap, reversing the whole operation after
the performance.
4. To drive nails with a hammer.
5. Use a key to lock and unlock a padlock. The animal most
proficient in this became able to select the right Yale key out of
a bunch of half a dozen or more, with as much quickness and
precision as the average man displays.
The orang Dohong learned to pedal and to guide a tricycle in about
three lessons. He caught the two ideas almost instantly, and soon
brought his muscles under control sufficiently to ride
successfully, even under difficult conditions.
It was quickly recognized that our Rajah was a particularly good
subject, and with him the keepers went farther than with the four
others. From the first moment, the training operations were to him
both interesting and agreeable. The animal enjoyed the work, and
he entered into it so heartily that in two weeks he was ready to
dine in public, somewhat after the manner of human beings.
A platform eight feet in height was erected in front of the
Reptile House, and upon it were placed a table, a high chair such
as small children use, and various dishes. To the platform a step-
ladder led upward from the ground. Every day at four o'clock lusty
Rajah was carried to the exhibition space, and set free upon the
ground. Forthwith the keepers proceeded to dress him in trousers,
vest, coat and cap. The moment the last button had been fastened
and the cap placed upon his head, he would promptly walk to the
ladder, climb up to the platform, and in the most business-like
way imaginable, seat himself in his chair at the table, all ready
to dine.
He used a napkin, ate his soup with a spoon, speared and conveyed
his sliced bananas with his fork, poured milk from a teapot into
his teacup, and drank from his cup with great enjoyment and
decorum. When he took a drink (of tea) from a suspicious-looking
black bottle, the audience always laughed. When he elevated the
empty bottle to one eye and looked far into it, they roared; and
when he finally took a toothpick and gravely placed it in his
mouth, his auditors were delighted. Several times during the
progress of each meal, Rajah would pause and benignly gaze down
upon the crowd, like a self-satisfied judge on his bench.
Not once did Rajah spoil this exhibition, which was continued
throughout an entire summer, nor commit any overt act of
impatience, indifference or meanness. The flighty, nervous temper
of the chimpanzee was delightfully absent. The most remarkable
feature of it all was his very evident enjoyment of his part of
the performance, and his sense of responsibility to us and to his
audiences.
Rajah easily and quickly learned to ride a tricycle, and guide it
himself. But for his untimely death, through a remarkable invasion
of a microscopic parasite (_Balentidium coli_) imported from
the Galapagos Islands by elephant tortoises, his mind would have
been developed much farther. Since his death, in 1902, we have had
other orang-utans that were successfully taught to dine, but none
of them entered into the business with the same hearty zest which
characterized Rajah, and made his performances so interesting.
We now come to a consideration of simian mental traits of very
different character. Another male orang, named Dohong, of the
same age and intellectual caste as Rajah, developed a faculty for
mechanics and invention which not only challenged our admiration,
but also created much work for our carpenters. He discovered, or
invented, as you please, the lever as a mechanical force,--as fairly
and squarely as Archimedes discovered the principle of the screw.
Moreover, he delighted in the use of the new power thus acquired,
quite as much as the successful inventor usually does. At the same
time, two very bright chimpanzees of his own age, and with the
same opportunities, discovered nothing.
[Illustration caption: THUMB-PRINT OF AN ORANG-UTAN
A group of fourteen experts in the New York City Departement of
Criminal Records were unable to recognise this thumb print as
anything else than that of a man]
[Illustration caption: "RAJAH," THE ACTOR ORANG-UTAN
In three lessons he learned to ride a tricycle]
Dohong was of a reflective turn of mind, and never was entirely
willing to learn the things that his keepers sought to teach him.
To him, dining at a table was tiresomely dull, and the donning of
fashionable clothing was a frivolous pastime, On the other hand,
the interior of his cage, and his gymnastic appliances of ropes,
trapeze and horizontal bars, all interested him greatly. Every
square inch of surface, and every piece of material in his
apartment, was carefully investigated, many times over.
When three years old he discovered his own strength, and at first
he used it good-naturedly to hector his cage-mate, a female
chimpanzee smaller than himself. That, however, was of trifling
interest. The day on which he made the discovery that he could
break the wooden one and one-half inch horizontal bars that were
held out from his cage walls on cast iron brackets, was for him a
great day. Before his discovery was noted by the keepers he had
joyfully destroyed two bars, and with a broken piece used as a
lever was attacking a third. These bars were promptly replaced by
larger bars, of harder wood, but screwed to the same cast-iron
brackets that had carried the first series.
For a time, the heavier bars endured; but in an evil moment the
ape swung his trapeze bar, of two-inch oak, far over to one side
of his cage, and applied the bar as a lever, inside of a
horizontal bar and from above. The new force was too much for the
cast-iron brackets, and one by one they gave way. Some were broken
off, and others were torn from the wall by the breaking of the
screws that held them. Knowing that all those brackets
must be changed immediately, Dohong was left to destroy them;
which he did, promptly and joyfully. We then made heavy
brackets of flat wrought iron bars, 1/2 by 21/2 inches, unbreakable
even with a lever. These were screwed on with screws
so large and heavy that our carpenters knew they were quite
secure.
[Illustration caption: THE LEVER THAT OUR ORANG-UTAN INVENTED, AND
THE WAY HE APPLIED IT By W. A. Camadeo, in the "Scientific
American," 1907]
In due time, Dohong tested his lever upon the bars with their new
brackets, and at first they held securely. Then he engaged Polly,
his chimpanzee companion, to assist him to the limit of her
strength. While Dohong pulled on the lever, Polly braced her
absurd little back against the wall, and pushed upon it, with all
her strength. At first nothing gave way. The combined strength
exerted by the three brackets was not to be overcome by prying at
the horizontal bar itself. It was then that Dohong's inventive
genius rose to its climax. He decided to attack the brackets
singly, and conquer them one by one. On examining the situation
very critically, he found that each bracket consisted of a right-
angled triangle of wrought iron, with its perpendicular side
against the wall, its base uppermost, and its hypotenuse out in
the air. Through the open centre of the triangle he introduced the
end of his trapeze bar, chain and all, as far as it would go, then
gave a mighty heave. The end of his lever was against the wall,
and the power was applied in such a manner that few machine screws
could stand so great a strain. One by one, the screws were torn
out of the wood, and finally each bracket worked upon was torn
off.
But there was one exception. The screws of one bracket were so
firmly set in a particularly hard strip of the upright tongued-
and-grooved yellow pine flooring that formed the wall, the board
itself was finally torn out, full length! The board was four
inches wide, seven-eighths of an inch thick, and seven feet long.
Originally it was so firmly nailed that no one believed that it
could be torn from its place. [Footnote: In the Winter of 1921
about a dozen newspapers in the United States published a
sensational syndicated article, occupying an entire page, in which
all of Dohong's lever discovery and cage-wrecking performances
were reported as of recent occurrence, and credited to a stupid
and uninteresting young orang called Gabong, now in the Zoological
Park, that has not even the merit of sufficient intelligence to
maintain a proper state of bodily uprightness, let alone the
invention of mechanical principles.]
Without delay, Dohong started in with his lever to pry off the
remaining boards of the wall, but this movement was promptly
checked. Our next task consisted in making long bolts by which the
brackets of the horizontal bars were bolted entirely through the
partition walls and held so powerfully on the other side that even
the lever could not wreck them.
As soon as the brackets were made secure, Dohong turned his
attention to the two large sleeping boxes which were built very
solidly on the balcony of his cage. Both of those structures he
tore completely to pieces,--always working with the utmost good
nature and cheerfulness. Realizing that they could not exist in
the cage with him, we gave him a permit to tear them out--and save
the time of the carpenters.
Dohong's use of his lever was seen by hundreds of visitors, and
one frequent visitor to the Park, Mr. L. A. Camacho, an engineer,
was so much impressed that he published in the _Scientific
American_ an illustrated account of what he saw.
For a long period, Dohong had been more or less annoyed by the
fact that he could not get his head out between the front bars of
his cage, and look around the partition into the home of his next-
door neighbor. Very soon after he discovered the use of the lever,
he swung his trapeze bar out to the upper corner of his cage,
thrust the end of it out between the first bar and the steel
column of the partition, and very deftly bent two of the iron bars
outward far enough so that he could easily thrust his head outside
and have his coveted look.
One of our later and largest orangs made a specialty of twisting
the straw of his bedding into a rope six or seven feet long, then
throwing it over his trapeze bar and swinging by it, forward and
back.
Time and space will not permit the enumeration of the various
things done by that ape of mechanical mind with his swinging rope
and his trapeze, with ropes of straw _twisted by himself,_
with keys, locks, hammer, nails and boxes. Any man who can witness
such manifestations as those described above, and deny the
existence in the animal of an ability to reason from cause to
effect, must be prepared to deny the evidence of his own senses.
The individual variations between orangs, as also between
chimpanzees, are great and striking. It may with truth be said
that no two individuals of either species are really quite alike
in physiognomy, temperament and mental capacity. As subjects for
the experimental psychologist, it is difficult to see how any
other could be found that would be even a good second in living
interest to the great apes. The facts thus far recorded, so I
believe, present only a suggestion of the rich results that await
the patient scientific investigator. In the year 1915 Dr. Robert
M. Yerkes, of Harvard University, conducted at Montecito,
southern California, in a comfortable primate laboratory, six
months of continuous and diligent experiments on the behavior of
orang-utans and monkeys. His report, published under the title of
"The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes: A Study of Ideational
Behavior," is a document of much interest and value. Dr. Yerkes'
use of the orang-utan as a subject was a decided step forward in
the study of "animal behavior" in America.
IX
THE MAN-LIKENESS OF THE CHIMPANZEE
During the past twenty years, millions of thinking people have
been startled, and not a few shocked, by the amazing and uncanny
human-likeness of the performances of trained chimpanzees on the
theatrical stage. Really, when a well trained "chimp" is dressed
from head to foot like a man, and is seen going with quickness,
precision and spirit through a performance half an hour in length,
we go away from it with an uncomfortable feeling that speech is
all that he lacks of being a citizen.
In 1904 the American public saw Esau. Next came Consul,--in about
three or four separate editions! In 1909 we had Peter. Then came I
know not how many more, including the giant Casey and Mr. Garner's
Susie; and finally in 1918 our own Suzette. The theatre-going
public has been well supplied with trained chimpanzees, and the
mental capacity of that species is now more widely known and
appreciated than that of any other wild animal except the Indian
elephant.
There are several reasons why chimpanzees predominate on the
stage, and why so few performing orang-utans have been seen. They
are as follows:
1. The orang is sanguine, and slower in execution than the nervous
chimpanzee.
2. The feet of the orang are not good for shoes, and biped work.
3. The orang is rather awkward with its hands, and finally,
4. There are fully twice as many chimps in the market.
But the chimpanzee has certain drawbacks of his own. His nervous
temper and his forced-draught activities soon wear him out. If he
survives to see his sixth or seventh year, it is then that he
becomes so strong and so full of ego that he becomes dangerous and
requires to be retired.
Bright minds are more common among the chimpanzee species than
among the orangs. Three chimps out of every five are good for
training, but not more than two orangs out of five can be
satisfactorily developed.
Some sensitive minds shrink from the idea that man has "descended"
from the apes. I never for a moment shared that feeling. I would
rather descend from a clean, capable and bright-minded genus of
apes than from any unclean, ignorant and repulsive race of the
genus _Homo._ In comparing the chimpanzees of Fernan Vaz
with the Canoe Indians of the Strait of Magellan and other human
tribes we could name, I think the former have decidedly the best
of it. There are millions of members of the human race who are
more loathsome and repulsive than wild apes.
The face of the chimpanzee is highly mobile, and the mouth, lips,
eyes and voice express the various emotions of the individual
with a degree of clearness and precision second only to the facial
expression of man himself. In fact, the face of an intelligent
chimpanzee or orang-utan is a fairly constant index of the state
of mind of the individual. In their turn, those enormously
expansive lips and keen brown eyes express contentment, doubt,
fear and terror; affection, disapproval, jealousy, anger, rage;
hunger and satiety; lonesomeness and illness.
The lips of the chimpanzee afford that animal several perfectly
distinct expressions of the individual's mind and feelings. While
it is not possible to offer a description of each which will
certainly be recognizable to the reader, the two extremes will at
least be appreciated. When coaxing for food, or attention, the
lips are thrust far out beyond the teeth, and formed into a funnel
with the small end outermost. When the chimpanzee flies into a
rage at some real or fancied offense, the snarling lips are drawn
back, and far up and down, until the teeth and gums are fully
exposed in a ghastly threat of attack. At the same time, the voice
gives forth shrill shrieks of rage, correctly represented by the
syllable "Ee-ee-ee!", prolonged, and repeated with great force,
three or four times. On such occasions as the latter, the
offending party must look out for himself, or he may be roughly
handled.
The voice of the chimpanzee is strong, clear, and in captivity it
is very much in evidence. Two of its moderate tones are almost
musical. It is heard when the animal says, coaxingly, "Who'-oe!
Who'-oe!" A dozen times a day, our large specimens indulge in
spells of loud yelling, purely for their own amusement. Their
strident cry sounds like "Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! _Wah'_-hoo!
_Wah'_-hoo! Hoo'-hoo! _Wah_-h-h-h! _Wah_-h-h!" The
second combination, "Wah-hoo," consists of two sounds, four notes
apart.
It is with their voices that chimpanzees first manifest their
pleasure at seeing cherished friends of the human species, or
their anger. Their recognition, and their exuberant joy on such
occasions, is quite as apparent to every observer as are the
manifestations of welcome of demonstrative human beings.
Like all other groups of species, the apes of various genera now
living vary widely in their mentalities. The chimpanzee has the
most alert and human-like mind but with less speed the orang-utan
is a good second. The average captive gorilla, if judged by
existing standards for ape mentality, is a poor third in the
anthropoid scale, below the chimp and orang; but since the rise of
Major Penny's family-pet gorilla, named John, we must revise all
our former views of that species, and concede exceptions.
In studying the mental status of the primates I attach great
importance to the work and results of the professional trainers
who educate animals for stage performances. If the trainer does
not know which are the brightest species of apes, baboons and
monkeys, then who does? Their own fortunes depend upon their
estimate of comparative mentality in the primates. Fortunately for
our purposes, the minds of the most intelligent and capable apes,
baboons, and monkeys have been partially developed and exploited
by stage trainers, and to a far less extent by keepers in zoological
parks. Some wonderful results have been achieved, and the best of
these have been seen by the public in theatres, in traveling shows
and in zoological parks. All these performances have greatly
interested me, because they go so far as measures of mental
capacity. I wish to make it clear that I take them very seriously.
[Illustration
with caption: PORTRAIT OF A HIGH-CASTE CHIMPANZEE "Baldy" was an
animal of fine intelligence and originality in thought. He was a
natural comedian]
While many of the acts of trained animals are due to their power
of mimicry and are produced by imitation rather than by original
thought, even their imitative work reveals a breadth of
intelligence, a range of memory and of activity and precision in
thought and in energy which no logical mind can ignore. To say
that a chimpanzee who can swing through thirty or forty different
acts "does not think" and "does not reason," is to deny the
evidence of the human senses, and fall outside the bounds of human
reason.
Training Apes for Performances. As will appear in its own chapter,
there is nothing at all mysterious in the training of apes. The
subject must be young, and pliant in mind, and of cheerful and
kind disposition. The poor subjects are left for cage life. The
trainer must possess intelligence of good quality, infinite
patience and tireless industry. Furthermore, the stage properties
must be ample. An outfit of this kind can train any ape that is
mentally and physically a good subject. Of course in every animal
species, wild or domestic, there are individuals so dull and
stupid that it is inexpedient to try to educate them.
The chimpanzee Suzette who came to us direct from the vaudeville
stage performed every summer in her open-air "arena cage," until
she entered motherhood, which put an end to her stage work. She
was a brilliant "trick" bicycle rider. She could stand upright on
a huge wooden ball, and by expert balancing and foot-work roll it
up a steep incline, down a flight of stairs, and land it safely
upon the stage, without once losing her balance or her control.
She was entirely at home on roller skates, and when taken out upon
the pavement of Baird Court she would go wildly careering around
the large grass plat at high speed.
All the above acts were acrobatic feats that called for original
thought and action, and were such as no dull mind and body could
exert. All the training skill in the world could not take a
machine and teach it to ride a bicycle through a collection of
bottles, and an intelligent ape is a million years from being a
"machine in fur and feathers."
More than once I have been astounded by the performances of apes
on the stage. Mr. J. S. Edwards' orang-utan Joe was a very capable
animal, and his performances were wonderful. He could use a
hammer in driving nails, and a screwdriver in inserting and
extracting screws, with wonderful dexterity.
The most remarkable chimpanzee performance that I ever saw was
given in a New York theatre in 1909. The star actor was a fine
male animal about six years old, called Peter. I made a complete
record of his various acts, and the program was as follows
PERFORMANCE OF PETER, A CHIMPANZEE
Stage properties: a suit of clothes, shoes, chair, table, bed,
bureau, hatrack, candle, cigarette, match, cuspidor, roller
skates, bottles, flag, inclined plane and steps; plate, napkin,
cup, spoon, teapot.
As Peter entered, he bowed to the audience, took off his cap and
hung it upon a hatrack. He went to the table, seated himself in
the chair, unfolded and put on a napkin, and with a string
fastened it in place under his chin. With a fork he speared some
slices of banana and ate them. Into his tumbler he poured liquid
from a bottle, drank, then corked the bottle. Next, he poured
tea into a cup, put in sugar and cream, took tea from the spoon,
then drank from the cup. After that he took a toothpick and used
it elaborately.
Striking a match he lit a cigarette, and smoked. In perfect man-
fashion he took the cigarette between his fingers, gave his keeper
a light, smoked again, and blew puffs of smoke first from one
corner of his mouth and then the other. Then he elaborately spat
into the cuspidor.
Next in order he went to the bureau, cleaned his teeth with a
tooth-brush, brushed his hair on both sides, looked into the
mirror and powdered his face.
Finally he bit a coin and put it on the keeper's plate as a tip.
He pulled off his coat, took off his cuffs and vest, and thus half
undressed he joyously danced about, beating a tambourine. Then he
removed his shirt, trousers, shoes, garters and socks. Lighting
his candle he walked to his bed, blew out the candle and went to
bed.
Very soon he rose, put on his trousers and a pair of roller skates
and playfully pursued a young woman who ran before him. His use of
the roller skates was excellent.
The stage was cleared of furniture, and a bicycle was brought out.
He mounted it and started off, at the first trial, and swiftly
rode around the stage about fifteen times. While riding he took
off his cap and waved it. He rode up an inclined plane and down
four steps without falling off, repeating for an encore,--but
here he became peeved about something.
Five bottles were set in a figure 8, and he rode between them
several times. At last he took up a bottle and drank out of it.
Then he drank out of a tumbler, all while riding. After much flag-
waving and swift riding, Peter stopped at the center of the stage,
dismounted, bowed, clapped his hands vigorously and retired.
Peter's performance was remarkable because of the great length of
it, the absolute skill and precision of it, and the animal's easy
mastery of every situation. There was a notable absence of
hesitations and mistakes, and of visible direction. The trainer
seemed to do nothing save to assist with the stage properties,
just as an assistant helps any acrobat through the property
business of his act. If any commands or signs were given, the
audience was not aware of it. Later on I learned that sometimes
Peter did not perform with such spirit, and required some urging
to be prompt. The trainer was kept hustling to keep up with his
own duties. The animal seemed to remember, and I believe he did
remember, the sequence of a performance of _fifty-six separate
acts!_
When I witnessed Peter's performance in New York, saw the length
of it and noted the immense amount of nervous energy that each
performance used up, I made the prediction that he could not for
one year endure such a strain. It was reported to me that he died
nine months from that time.
In October, 1909, when Peter went to Philadelphia, he was
frequently and closely studied and observed by Dr. Lightner
Witmer, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania,
and his mentality was tested at the laboratory of the University.
Dr. Witmer's conclusions, as set forth in a paper in the December
(1909) issue of the _Psychological Clinic,_ are of very great
interest. He approached Peter's first performance in a skeptical
frame of mind. I gladly waive the opportunity to express my own
views regarding Peter in order to put upon the stand a more
competent witness. Hear Dr. Witmer:
"As I entered the theatre," he says, "my feelings were commingled
interest and doubt. My doubts were bred from knowledge of the
difficulty of judging the intelligence of an animal from a stage
performance. So-called educated horses and even educated seals and
fleas have made their appeal in large number to the credulity of
the public. Can any animal below man be educated in the proper
sense of the word? Or is the animal mind susceptible of nothing
more than a mechanical training, and only given the specious
counterfeit of an educated intelligence when under the direct
control of the trainer?
"Since that day I have seen Peter in five public performances,
have tested him at my psychological clinic and privately on three
occasions. I now believe that in a very real sense the animal is
himself giving the stage performance. He knows what he is doing,
he delights in it, he varies it from time to time, he understands
the succession of tricks which are being called for, he is guided
by word of mouth without any signal open or concealed, and the
function of his trainer is exercised mainly to steady and control.
"I am prepared to accept the statement of his trainers, Mr. and
Mrs. McArdle, that Peter's proficiency is not so much the result
of training as of downright self-education."
Peter was put through many of the tests which Dr. Witmer uses for
the study of backward children. He performed many of these tests
in a very satisfactory manner. He was able to string beads the
first time he tried it. He put pegs in the ordinary kindergarten
pegging board. He opened and closed a very difficult lock. He used
hammer and screw driver, and distinguished without any mistake
between nails and screws. A peculiar kind of hammer was given to
him in order to fool him, but Peter was not fooled. He felt both
ends of the hammer and used the flat end instead of the round end.
Showing his initiative during the tests, Peter got away from those
who were watching him and darted for a washstand, quickly turned
the faucet and put his mouth to the spigot and secured a drink
before he was snatched away by his trainers. He understood
language and followed instructions without signs. He was able to
say "mamma," and Doctor Witmer taught him in five minutes to give
the sound of "p." The most remarkable performance was making the
letter "w" on the blackboard, in which he imitated Doctor Witmer's
movements exactly, and reproduced a fair copy of the letter.
The last four paragraphs reproduced above have been copied from an
article which appeared in the Philadelphia _Public Ledger_ on
December 17, 1909.
Dr. Witmer declares that the study of this ape's mind is a subject
fit, not for the animal psychologist, but for the child
psychologist.
Suzette's Failure in Maternal Instinct. As a closing contribution
to our observations on the chimpanzee, I must record a tragic
failure in maternal instinct, as well as in general intelligence,
in a chimpanzee.
In 1919 our two fine eight-year old chimpanzees, Boma and Suzette,
were happily married. It was a genuine love match, and strictly
monogamous at that; for while big Fanny Chimp in the cage next
door to Boma loved Boma and openly courted him, he was
outrageously indifferent to her, and even scorned her. After
seven months of gestation, a very good baby was born to Suzette,
quite naturally and successfully. Boma's shouts of excitement and
delight carried half a mile throughout the Park. Everything looked
most auspicious for the rearing of a wonderful cage-bred and
cage-born chimpanzee, the second one ever born in captivity.
Instead of carrying her infant astride her hip, as do orang
mothers, and the coolie women of India, Suzette astonished us
beyond measure by tucking it _into her groin,_ between her
thigh and her abdomen, head outward. It was a fine place,--warm
and soft,--but not good when overdone! When Suzette walked, as she
freely did, she held up the leg responsible for the baby, to hold
it securely in place, and walked upon the other foot and her two
hands. About all this there was one very bad thing. The baby was
perfectly helpless! As long as the mother chose to keep it in her
groin prison, it could not get free.
Suzette was completely isolated, kept absolutely quiet, and every
chance was given her to go on with the functions of motherhood.
Her breasts contained plenty of milk, and the flow was due to
start on the second day after the infant's arrival.
Day and night the baby was jealously confined in that massive and
powerful groin,--and _under too much pressure!_ When the baby
cried, and kicked, and struggled to get free, Suzette would
nervously rearrange her straw bed, carefully pick from the tiny
fingers every straw that they had clutched, and settle down again.
If the struggle was soon renewed, Suzette would change the infant
over to the other groin, and close upon it as before.
Sleeping or waking, walking, sitting or lying down, she held it
there. If we attempted to touch the infant, the mother instantly
became savage and dangerous. Not one human finger was permitted to
touch it. For hours, and for days, we anxiously watched for
nursing to begin; but in vain. At last we became almost frantic
from the spectacle of the infant being slowly starved to death
because the mother did not realize that it needed her milk, and
that she alone could promote nursing. _Her mother instinct
utterly failed to supply the link that alone could connect infancy
to motherhood, and furnish life._
Of course this failure was due to poor Suzette's artificial life,
and unnatural surroundings. Had she been all alone, in the depths
of a tropical forest, Nature would have proceeded along her usual
lines. But in our Primate House, Suzette felt that her infant was
surrounded by a host of strange enemies, from whom it must be
strongly and persistently _guarded and defended._ That was
the idea that completely dominated her mind, ruled out all human
help, and blocked the main process of nature.
During the eight days that the infant lived, it was able to reach
her breast and nurse only once, for about one minute; and then
back it went to its prison, where it died from sheer lack of
nourishment.
In 1920, that same history was repeated, except that on this
occasion our Veterinary Surgeon, Dr. W. Reid Blair, worked (on the
fifth day) for seven hours without intermission to stupefy Suzette
with chloroform, or other opiates, sufficiently to make it
possible to remove the baby without a fight with the mother and
its certain death. Owing to her savage temper all the work had to
be done between iron bars, to keep from losing hands or arms, and
the handicap on the human hand was too great. Even when Suzette
had received chloroform for an hour and twenty minutes, and was
regarded as _half dead,_ at the first touch of a human finger
upon her thigh she instantly aroused and sprang up, raging and
ready for battle.
The whole effort failed. To rope Suzette and attempt to control
her by force would have been sheer folly, or worse. In such a
struggle the infant would have been torn to pieces.
The second one died as the first one did, and for an awful week we
were unable to gain possession of the decomposing cadaver. Suzette
knew that something was wrong, and she realized the awful odor,
but that idea of defense of her offspring obscured all others. In
maintaining her possession of that infant, nothing could surpass
the cunning of that ape mother. Will we ever succeed in outwitting
her, and in getting one of her babies alive into a baby incubator?
Who can say?
X
THE TRUE MENTAL STATUS OF THE GORILLA
The true mental status of the gorilla was discovered in 1919 and
1920, at 15 Sloane Street, London, by Major Rupert Penny, of the
Royal Air Service, and his young relative, Miss Alyse Cunningham.
Prior to that time, through various combinations of retarding
circumstances, no living gorilla had ever been placed and kept in
an environment calculated to develop and display the real mental
calibre of the gorilla mind. It seems that an exhibition cage, in
a zoological park or garden thronged with visitors, actually tends
to the suppression, or even the complete extinguishment, of true
gorilla character. The atmosphere of the footlights and the stage
in which the chimpanzee delights and thrives is to the gorilla
repulsive and unbearable.
Judging by Major Penny's "John," the gorilla wishes to live in a
high-class human family, in a modern house, and be treated like a
human being! It is now definitely recognized by us, and also by
our colleagues in the London Zoological Gardens, that gorillas can
not live long and thrive on public exhibition, before great crowds
of people, and that it is folly to insist upon trying to compel
them to do so. The male individual that lived several years in the
Breslau Zoological Garden and attained the age of seven years was
a striking exception.
We have had two gorillas at our Park, one of which, a female named
Dinah, arrived in good health, and lived with us eleven and one-
half months. Her mind was dull and hopelessly unresponsive. She
learned next to nothing, and she did nothing really interesting.
Other captive gorillas I have known have been equally morose and
unresponsive, and lived fewer months than Dinah.
It is because of such animals as Dinah that for fifty years the
mental status of the gorilla species has been under a cloud. Until
now it has been much misunderstood and unappreciated. Of the few
gorillas that have been seen in England and America, I think that
all save John have been so morose and unresponsive, _and so
undeveloped by companionship and training_, that mentally they
have been rated far below the chimpanzee and orang.
Our own Dinah was no exception to the rule. Personally she was a
stupid little thing, even when in excellent health. Her most
pronounced and exasperating stupidities were shown in her refusal
to eat, or to taste, strange food, even when very hungry. Any ape
that does not know enough to eat a fine, ripe banana, and will
only mince away at the _inner lining_ of the banana skin, is
an unmitigated numskull, and hardly fit to live. Dinah was all
that, and more. But, alas! We have seen a few stupid human
children who obstinately refused even to taste certain new and
unknown kinds of food, because they "know" they will not like
them! So Dinah was not alone in her childish folly.
At last a chain of circumstances placed an intellectual and
sensible gorilla, two years of age, in the hands of a family
specially fitted by education and home surroundings to develop its
mind and its manners. The results of those efforts have given to
the gorilla an entirely new mental status. Thanks to the
enterprise and diligence of Major Rupert Penny and Miss Cunningham
in purchasing and caring for a sick and miserable young male
gorilla,--a most hazardous risk,--a new chapter in wild-animal
psychology now is to be written.
In December, 1918, "John Gorilla" was purchased in a London
department store, out of a daily atmosphere heated to _85
degrees_, and a nightly condition of solitude and terror. From
that awful state it was taken to live in Major Penny's comfortable
apartments. John was seriously ill. He was in a "rickety"
condition, and he weighed only 32 pounds. With a pure atmosphere,
kept at 65 degrees only, and amid good surroundings, he soon
became well. He attained such robust health and buoyant spirits
that in March, 1921, he stood 40 1/2 inches high and weighed 112
pounds.
At my solicitation Miss Cunningham wrote out for me the very
remarkable personal history of that wonderful animal,--apparently
the most wonderful gorilla ever observed in captivity. It is a
clear, straightforward and convincing record, and not one of its
statements is to be for one moment doubted. While it is too long
to reproduce here in its entirety, I will present a condensation
of it, in Miss Cunningham's own words that will record the salient
facts,--with no changes save in arrangement.
Miss Cunningham says:
LONELINESS. "We soon found it was impossible to leave him alone at
night, because he shrieked every night, and nearly all night, from
loneliness and fear. This we found he had done in the store where
he lived before coming to us. He always began to cry directly he
saw the assistants putting things away for the night. We found
that this loneliness at night was trying on his health and
appetite. As soon as possible my nephew had his bed made up every
night in the room adjoining the cage, with the result that John
was quite happy, and began to grow and put on fat.
TREATMENT. "I fed him, washed his hands, face and feet twice a
day, and brushed and combed his hair,--which he would try to do
himself whenever he got hold of the brush or comb. He soon got to
like all this.
TRAINING. "My next idea was to teach him to be strictly clean in
his habits. It was my ambition to be able to have him upstairs in
our house as an ordinary member of the household. I taught him
first as a child is taught and handled. This took some time. At
first I could not make him understand what we expected of him,
even though I always petted him and gave him grapes (of which he
was especially fond), but I think at first he imagined that this
treatment was a punishment. At first, without other reasons, he
would roll on the floor and shriek, but directly he understood
what was expected of him he soon learned, and began to behave
excellently.
"This training occupied quite six weeks. About February, 1919, we
took him out of his cage, and allowed him the freedom of the
house. Thereafter he would run upstairs to the bathroom of his own
accord, turning the doorknob of whatever room he was in, and also
opening the door of the bathroom.... He would get out of bed in
the night by himself, go back to bed, and pull the blankets over
himself quite neatly.
FOOD. "John's appetite seemed to tire of foods very quickly. The
only thing he stuck to was milk, which he liked best when warmed.
We began by giving him a quart a day, rising to three and one-half
quarts a day. I found that he preferred to choose his own food, so
I used to prepare for him several kinds, such as bananas, oranges,
apples, grapes, raisins, currants, dates and any small fruits in
season, such as raspberries or strawberries, _all of which he
liked to have warmed!_
"These displays I placed on a high shelf in the kitchen, where he
could get them with difficulty. I think that he thought himself
very clever when he stole anything. He never would eat anything
stale. He was extremely fond of fresh lemon jelly, but he never
would touch it after the second day. He loved roses, _to
eat_, more than anything. The more beautiful they were, the
more he liked them, but he never would eat faded roses. He never
cared much for nuts of any other kind than baked peanuts, save
walnuts. I found that nuts gave him dreadful spells of
indigestion.
USE OF TOOLS. "He knew what hammers and chisels were for, but for
obvious reasons we never encouraged him in anything to do with
carpentry. With cocoanuts he was very funny. He knew that they had
to be broken, and he would try to break them on the floor. When he
found he couldn't manage that, he would bring the nut to one of us
and try to make us understand what he wished. If we gave him a
hammer he would try to use it on the nut, and on not being able to
manage that, he would give back to us both the hammer and the
cocoanut.
GAMES AND PLAY. "We never taught him any tricks; he simply
acquired knowledge himself. A game he was very fond of was to
pretend he was blind, shutting his eyes very tightly, and running
around the room knocking against tables and chairs. . . . We found
that exercise was the thing he required to keep him in health, and
my nephew used to give him plenty of that by playing hide and seek
with him in the morning before breakfast, and in the evening
before dinner,--up and down stairs, in and out of all the rooms.
He simply loved that game, and would giggle and laugh while being
chased.... If he saw that a stranger was at all nervous about him,
he loved running past him, and giving him a smack on the leg,--and
you could see him grin as he did so.
"A thing he greatly enjoyed was to stand on the top rail of his
bed and jump on the springs, head over heels, just like a child.
CAUTION. "He was very cautious. He would never run into a dark
room without first turning on the light.
FEAR. "John seemed to realize danger for other people in high
places, for if anyone looked out of a high window he always pushed
them away if he were at the window himself, but if he was away
from it he would run and pull them back. . . . He was very much
afraid of full-grown sheep, cows and horses, but he loved colts,
calves and lambs, proving to us that he recognized youth.
WOODS VS. FIELDS. "We found he did not like fields or open
country, but he was very happy in a garden, or in woods. . . . He
always liked nibbling twigs, and to eat the green buds of trees.
TABLE MANNERS. "His table manners were really very good. He always
sat at the table, and whenever a meal was ready, would pull his
own chair up to his place. He did not care to eat a great deal,
but he especially liked to drink water out of a tumbler. . . . He
was the least greedy of all the animals I have ever seen. He never
would snatch anything, and always ate very slowly. He always drank
a lot of water, which he would always get himself whenever he
wanted it by turning on a tap. Strange to say, he always turned
off the water when he had finished drinking.
PLAYING TO THE GALLERY. "John seemed to think that everyone was
delighted to see him, and he would throw up the window whenever he
was permitted. If he found the sash locked he would unfasten it,
and when a big crowd had collected outside he would clap his chest
and his hands. [Footnote: In the summer of 1920 a globe-trotter
just arrived from England excitedly reported to me: "While driving
along a street in London _I saw a live gorilla_ in the upper
window of an apartment. It was a _real gorilla;_ and it
clapped its hands at us as we looked! Now _what_ did it all
mean?" Fortunately I was able to explain it.]
PUNISHMENT AND REPENTANCE. "We made one very great mistake with
John. His cage was used as a punishment, with the result that we
never could leave him there alone, for he would shriek all the
time. . . . Now, a stick was the one thing that our gorilla would
not stand from anyone, save Major Penny and myself. Presently we
found out that the only way to deal with him was to tell him that
he was very naughty, and push him away from us; when he would roll
on the floor and cry, and be very-repentant, holding one's ankles,
and putting his head on our feet.
AFFECTION FOR A CHILD. "He was especially fond of my little niece,
three years old. John and she used to play together for hours, and
he seemed to understand what she wanted him to do. If she ever
cried, and her mother would not go and pick her up, John would
always try and nip the mother, or give her a smack with the full
weight of his hand, evidently thinking she was the cause of the
child's tears.
A SENSE OF GOOD ORDER. "He loved to take everything
out of a wastepaper basket and strew the contents all over the
room, after which, when told to do so he would pick up everything
and put it all back, but looking very bored all the while. If the basket
was very full he would push it all down very carefully, to make room
for more. He would always put things back when told to do so, such
as books from a bookshelf or things from a table.
[Illustration caption: THE GORILLA WITH THE WONDERFUL MIND Owned
by Major Rupert Penny, educated by Miss Alyse Cunningham, London,
1918-1921]
TWO CASES OF ORIGINAL THOUGHT. (1) "One day we were going out, for
which I was sitting ready dressed, when John wished to sit in my
lap. My sister, Mrs. Penny, said: 'Don't let him. He will spoil
your dress.'
"As my dress happened to be a light one I pushed him away, and
said, 'No!' He at once lay on the floor and cried just like a
child, for about a minute. Then he rose, looked round the room,
found a newspaper, went and picked it up, spread it on my lap and
climbed up. This was quite the cleverest thing I ever saw him do.
_Even those who saw it said they would not have believed it had
they not seen it themselves!_ Both my nephews, (Major Penny and
Mr. E. C. Penny), his wife and my sister (Mrs. Penny) were in the
room, and can testify to the correctness of the above record.
(2) "Another clever thing John did, although I suspect this was
due more to instinct that to downright cleverness. A piece of
filet beefsteak had just come from the butcher. Inasmuch as
occasionally I gave him a small mouthful of raw beef, a small
piece of the coarser part of the steak was cut off, and I gave it
to him. He tasted it, then gravely handed it back to me. Then he
took my hand and put it on the finer part of the meat. From that I
cut off a tiny piece, gave it to him, and he ate it. When my
nephew came home he wouldn't believe it, so I tried it again, with
the same result, except that then he did not even attempt to eat
the coarser meat."
* * * * *
Concerning Miss Cunningham's wonderful story, I wish to state that
I believe all of it,--because there is no reason to do otherwise!
It sets a new mark in gorilla lore, and it lifts a curtain from an
animal mind that previously was unknown, and very generally
misunderstood.
To the Doubting Thomases who will doubt some portions of Miss
Cunningham's story, let me cite, by way of caution, the following
history:
When Du Chaillu discovered the gorilla, and came to America and
England with his specimens to tell about it, he said that when a
big gorilla is attacked and made angry it beats its breast,
repeatedly, with its clenched fists. The wiseacres of that day
solemnly shook their heads and said: "Oh, no! That can not be
true. No ape ever did that. He is romancing!" But now we know that
this breast-beating and chest-clapping habit is to a gorilla a
common-place performance, even in captivity.
Sometimes there are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in all our philosophy.
XI
THE MIND OF THE ELEPHANT
It was in the jungles of the Animallai Hills of southern India
that I first became impressed by the mental capacity of the Indian
elephant. I saw many wild herds. I saw elephants at work, and at
one period I lived in a timber camp, consisting of working
elephants and mahouts. I saw a shrewd young elephant-driver
soundly flogged for stealing an elephant, farming it out to a
native timber contractor for four days, and then elaborately
pretending that the animal had been "lost." Later on I saw
elephant performances in the "Greatest Show on Earth" and
elsewhere, and for eighteen years I have been chief mourner over
the idiosyncrasies of Gunda and Alice. If I do not now know
something about elephants, then my own case of animal intelligence
is indeed hopeless.
To me it seems that the only thing necessary to establish the
elephant as an animal of remarkable intellect and power of
original reasoning is to set forth the unadorned facts that lie
ready to hand.
Cuvier recorded the opinion that in sagacity the elephant in no
way excels the dog and some other species of carnivora. Sir
Emerson Tennent, even after some study of the elephant, was
disposed to award the palm for intelligence to the dog, but only
"from the higher degree of development consequent on his more
intimate domestication and association with man." In the mind of
G. P. Sanderson we fear that familiarity with the elephant bred a
measure of contempt; and this seems very strange. He says:
"Its reasoning faculties are undoubtedly far below those of the
dog, and possibly of other animals; and in matters beyond its
daily experience it evinces no special discernment."
To me it seems that all three of those opinions are off the
target. The dog is not a wild, untrammeled animal; and neither
dogs, cats nor savage men evince any special discernment "beyond
the range of their daily experience." Moreover, there are some
millions of tame men of whom the same may be said with entire
safety.
Very often the question is asked: "Is the African elephant equal
in intelligence and training capacity to the Indian species?"
To this we must answer: Not proven. We do not know. The African
species never has been tried out on the same long and wide basis
as the Indian. Many individual African elephants, very
intelligent, have been trained, successfully, and have given good
accounts of themselves. For my own part I am absolutely sure that
when taken in hand at the same age, and trained on the same basis
as the Indian species, the African elephant will be found mentally
quite the equal of the Indian, and just as available for work or
performances.
No negro tribe really likes to handle elephants and train them.
The Indian native loves elephants, and enjoys training them and
working with them. It is these two conditions that have left the
African elephant far behind the procession. The African elephant
belongs to the great Undeveloped Continent. He has been, and he
still is, mercilessly pursued and slaughtered for his tusks. All
the existing species of African elephants are going down and out
before the ivory hunters. We fear that they will all be dead one
hundred years from this time, or even less. A century hence, when
the last _africanus_ has gone to join the mammoth and the
mastodon, his well protected wild congener in India still will be
devouring his four hundred pounds of green fodder per day, and the
tame ones will be performing to amuse the swarming human millions
of this overcrowded world.
In the minds of our elephant keepers, familiarity with elephants
has bred just the reverse of contempt. Both Thuman and Richards
are quite sure that elephants are the wisest of all wild animals.
Despite the very great amount of trouble made for Keeper Thuman by
Gunda, the Indian, and Kartoum, the African, Thuman grows
enthusiastic over the shrewdness of their "cussedness." He is
particularly impressed by their skill in opening chain shackles,
and unfastening the catches and locks of doors and gates. And
really, Kartoum's ingenuity in finding out how to open latches and
bolts is almost inexhaustible, as well as marvelous.
Keeper Richards declares that our late African pygmy elephant,
Congo, was the wisest animal he ever has known. I have elsewhere
referred to his ability in shutting his outside door. Richards
taught him to accept coins from visitors, deposit them in a box,
then pull a cord to ring a bell, one pull for each coin
represented. The keeper devised four different systems of intimate
signals by which he could tell Congo to stop at the right point,
and all these were so slight that no one ever detected them. One
was by a voice-given cue, another by a hand motion, and a third
was by an inclination of the body.
Keeper Richards relates that Congo would go out in his yard,
collect a trunkful of peanuts from visitors, bring them inside and
secretly cache them in a corner behind his feed box. Then he would
go out for more graft peanuts, bring them in, hide them and
proceed to eat the first lot. There are millions of men who do not
know what it is to conserve something that can be eaten.
In this discussion of the intellectual powers and moral qualities
of the elephant I will confine myself to my own observations on
_Elephas indicus_, except where otherwise stated. A point to
which we ask special attention is that in endeavoring to estimate
the mental capacity of the elephant, we will base no general
conclusions upon _any particularly intelligent individual_,
as all mankind is tempted to do in discussions of the intelligence
of the dog, the cat, the horse, parrot and ape. On the contrary,
it is our desire to reveal the mental capacity of _every
elephant living_, tame or wild, except the few individuals with
abnormal or diseased minds. It is not to be shown how successfully
_an_ elephant has been taught by man, but how _all_
elephants in captivity have been taught, and the mental capacity
of _every_ elephant.
Under the head of intellectual qualities we have first to consider
the elephant's
POWERS OF INDEPENDENT OBSERVATIONS, AND REASONING FROM CAUSE TO
EFFECT
While many wonderful stories are related of the elephant's
sagacity and independent powers of reasoning, it must be admitted
that a greater number of more wonderful anecdotes are told on
equally good authority of dogs. But the circumstances in the case
are wholly to the advantage of the universal dog, and against the
rarely seen elephant. While the former roams at will through his
master's premises, through town and country, mingling freely with
all kinds of men and domestic animals, with unlimited time to lay
plans and execute them, the elephant in captivity is chained to a
stake, with no liberty of action whatever aside from begging with
his trunk, eating and drinking. His only amusement is in swaying
his body, swinging one foot, switching his tail, and (in a
zoological park) looking for something that he can open or
destroy. Such a ponderous beast cannot be allowed to roam at large
among human beings, and the working elephant never leaves his
stake and chain except under the guidance of his mahout. There is
no means of estimating the wonderful powers of reasoning that
captive elephants might develop if they could only enjoy the
freedom accorded to all dogs except the blood-hound, bull-dog and
a few others.
In the jungles of India the writer frequently has seen wild
elephants reconnoitre dangerous ground by means of a scout or spy;
communicate intelligence by signs; retreat in orderly silence from
a lurking danger, and systematically march, in single file, like
the jungle tribes of men.
Once having approached to within fifty yards of the stragglers of
a herd of about thirty wild elephants, which was scattered over
about four acres of very open forest and quietly feeding, two
individuals of the herd on the side nearest us suddenly suspected
danger. One of them elevated his trunk, with the tip bent forward,
and smelled the air from various points of the compass. A moment
later an old elephant left the herd and started straight for our
ambush, scenting the air with upraised trunk as he slowly and
noiselessly advanced. We instantly retreated, unobserved and
unheard. The elephant advanced until he reached the identical spot
where we had a moment before been concealed. He paused, and stood
motionless as a statue for about two minutes, then wheeled about
and quickly but noiselessly rejoined the herd. In less than half
a minute the whole herd was in motion, heading directly away from
us, and moving very rapidly, but _without the slightest
noise_. The huge animals simply vanished like shadows into the
leafy depths of the forest. Before proceeding a quarter of a mile,
the entire herd formed in single file and continued strictly in
that order for several miles. Like the human dwellers in the
jungle, the elephants know that the easiest and most expeditious
way for a large body of animals to traverse a tangled forest is
for the leader to pick the way, while all the others follow in his
footsteps.
In strong contrast with the stealthy and noiseless manner in which
elephants steal away from a lurking danger, or an ambush
discovered, from an open attack accompanied with the noise of
fire-arms they rush away at headlong speed, quite regardless of
the noise they make. On one occasion a herd which I was designing
to attack, and had approached to within forty yards, as its
members were feeding in some thick bushes, discovered my presence
and retreated so silently that they had been gone five minutes
before I discovered what their sudden quietude really meant. In
this instance, as in several others, the still alarm was
communicated by silent signals, or sign-language.
At the Zoological Park we reared an African pygmy elephant
(_Elephas pumilio_). When his slender little tusks grew to
eighteen inches in length he made some interesting uses of them.
Once when the keepers wished to lead him upon our large platform
scales, the trembling of the platform frightened him. He conceived
the idea that it was unsafe, and therefore that he must keep off.
He backed away, halted, and refused to leave solid ground. The men
pushed him. He backed, and trumpeted a shrill protest. The men
pushed harder, and forced him forward. Trumpeting his wild alarm
and his protest against what he regarded as murder, he fell upon
his knees and drove his tusks into the earth, quite up to his
mouth, to anchor himself firmly to the solid ground. It was
pathetic, but also amusing. When Congo finally was pushed upon the
scales and weighed, he left the trembling instrument of torture
with an air of disgust and disapproval tha
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