120 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



within the range of her experience. A monkey used 

 to stop a hole in the side of a cage with straw. The 

 keeper, to tease him, used to pull this out. But one 

 day the monkey tugged at a nail in the side of his cage 

 until he had pulled it out, and thrust it into the hole. 

 But when it was pushed back he fell into a rage. His 

 inference that the nail-head could not be pulled through 

 was entirely correct ; he had failed to foresee that it 

 could be pushed back. Many such instances have 

 probably come within the range of your observation, if 

 you have noticed them. But many of the facts which 

 Mr. Romanes gives us concerning the intelligence of 

 monkeys, apes, and baboons would not disgrace the 

 intelligence of children or men. 



Mr. Romanes relates the following account of a little 

 capuchin monkey from Brazil : 



"To-day he obtained possession of a hearth -brush, one of the 

 kind which has the handle screwed into the brush. He soon 

 found the way to unscrew the handle, and having done that he 

 immediately began to try to find out the way to screw it in again. 

 This he in time accomplished. At first he put the wrong end 

 of the handle into the hole, but turned it round and round the 

 right way for screwing. Finding it did not hold he turned the 

 other end of the handle and carefully stuck it into the hole, 

 and began again to turn it the right way. It was of course a 

 difficult feat for him to perform, for he required both his hands 

 in order to screw it in, and the long bristles of the brush pre- 

 vented it from remaining steady or with the right side up. He 

 held the brush with his hind hand, but even so it was very dif- 

 ficult for him to get the first turn of the screw to fit into the 

 thread ; he worked at it, however, with the most unwearying 

 perseverance until he got the first turn of the screw to catch, 

 and he then quickly turned it round and round until it was 

 screwed up to the end. The most remarkable thing was, that 

 however often he was disappointed in the beginning, he never 



