THE DEVELOPMENT OF A YOUNG MONKEY 137 



Her method of carrying and holding the baby is such as to 

 afford him the greatest possible protection from enemies and 

 from the weather. (Plates I and II.) Her patience in searching 

 over his body for parasites is unlimited, greatly to the discom- 

 fort of the little one, to whose vigorous protests she pays no 

 attention. No attempt at washing the baby, such as that 

 described by Duvaucel 8 for the Gibbon, was ever observed. 

 The rhesus monkeys are, in fact, quite careless of personal 

 cleanliness. 



The care of the baby brought about an interesting change 

 'in Dolly's relations to the other adult monkeys and to human 

 observers. Where before she had been the most aggressive of 

 the three, fighting for her food and keeping the others in fear 

 of her, she now protected the baby by flight, showing a timidity 

 quite at variance with her former disposition. The large male, 

 Jim, was quick to notice this and soon became so savage in 

 his attitude toward Dolly that it was necessary to put him in 

 a separate cage. 



The refusal of the mother to share her food with the young 

 monkey has been noted with surprise by all observers of this 

 species. Such a relation between parent and offspring is cer- 

 tainly rare among mammals and the extremes to which Dolly 

 goes are without parallel. She has been observed to take food 

 forcibly out of the baby's mouth and eat it herself, even when 

 her own cheek pouches were distended to their full capacity. 

 The significance of such an action is by no means clear. As 

 Cuvier noted it is certainly not a means of protecting the young 

 monkey from harmful food. 



PLAY 



We were particularly interested in the play activities of the 

 young monkey from their bearing upon methods of experimen- 

 tation with adults. On the whole, his play is very simple, con- 

 sisting only of random infantile movements, climbing, and 

 stalking. The first type appeared on the third day when he 

 clawed at Dolly's face and arms. 



The first complex play movement appeared in the third 

 week. Beginning as a simple thrusting out of his hands against 

 his mother it developed rapidly into the more complex stalking 

 of various objects in the cage. At this time also he began to 



8 Duvaucel: cited by Huxley. Man's Place in Nature, 1909, p. 43. 



