492 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



savagely, but seeing my mother be immediately jumped into 

 her lap. While another chain was being prepared he got to tho 

 trunk where his nuts are kept. I have long noticed that he 

 looks upon that trunk as in some special sense his own pro- 

 perty. There are other things kept in the trunk as well as the 

 nuts, and if any person goes to the trunk for anything he be- 

 comes furiously angry. Indeed nothing makes him so angry ay 

 people opening the trunk, and this is not because he wants nuts 

 out of it, for he always has more than he can eat beside him, 

 and generally refuses to take any that are offered to him. 

 Well, to-day, as soon as the breaking of his chain enabled him 

 to get to the trunk, he began picking at the lock with his 

 fingers. I then gave him the key, and he tried for two full 

 hours without ceasing to unlock the trunk with this key. It 

 was a very difficult lock to open, being slightly out of order, 

 and requires the lid of the trunk to be pressed down before it 

 would work, so I believe it was absolutely impossible for him 

 to open it, but he found in time the right way to put the key 

 in, and to turn it backwards and forwards, and after every at- 

 tempt he pulled the lid upwards to see if it were unlocked. That 

 this was the result of observing people is obvious, from the fact 

 that after every time he put the key into the lock and failed to 

 open the trunk, he passed the key round and round the outside 

 of 'the lock several times. The explanation of this is that, my 

 mother's sight being bad, she often misses the lock when put- 

 ting in the key, and then feels round and round the lock 

 with the key ; the monkey therefore evidently seems to think 

 that this feeling round and round the lock with the key is in 

 some way necessary to the success of unlocking the lock, so 

 that, although he could see perfectly well how to put the key in 

 .-iraight himself, he went through this useless operation first. 



21st. To-day I gave him a wooden box with the lid nailed 

 on, and an iron spoon, to see if he would use the latter as a 

 lever wherewith to raise the lid. The experiment was some- 

 what spoiled by my mother putting the handle of the spoon 

 into the crack between the lid and the box to show him how to do 

 it. Therefore I cannot tell whether or not he would have taken 

 this first step himself, if he had had time to do so. However, 

 when the handle of the spoon was in he certainly used it in the 

 proper manner, pulling it down with all his strength at the 

 extreme end, thus drawing the nails out of the box and raLsing 

 the lid. 



22nd. He was sitting on my mother's knee, and she wash- 

 ing his hands with a little sponge, a process of wlu'ch he is 



