ZOOLOGICAL SUPERSTITIONS. 163 



Yet the occupation of a monkey-trainer would put that tolerance to a 

 severe test. With an intelligence surpassing that of the most intelli- 

 gent dog, a monkey combines an ultra-mulish degree of obstinacy, and, 

 rather than imitate the demonstrative manipulations of the kindest in- 

 structor, he will sham fear, sham lameness, sham heart-disease, and 

 generally wind up by falling down in a sham fit of epileptic convul- 

 sions. I have owned monkeys of at least twenty different species, and 

 have never been able to discover the slightest trace of that supposed 

 penchant for mimicry. A boy may take off his coat and turn a thou- 

 sand somersets, Jacko will watch the phenomenon only with a view to 

 getting his fingers into the pockets of the unguarded coat. Lift up 

 your hand a hundred times, Jacko will witness the proceeding with 

 calm indifference, unless a more emphatic repetition of the manoeuvre 

 should make him duck his head to dodge an anticipated blow. He has 

 no desire to follow any human precedents whatever, and the apparent 

 exceptions from that rule are, on his part, wholly unintentional and 

 merely a natural result of anatomical analogies. An angry hamadryas 

 baboon, for instance, will strike the ground with his fist, not because 

 any Christian visitors have ever 6et him that bad example, but because 

 his forefathers have thus for ages vented their wrath on the rocks of the 

 Nubian highlands. A capuchin monkey will pick huckleberries with 

 his fingers, not in deference to civilized customs, but because his 

 fingers are deft and long, and his jaws very short. Nay, that same 

 capuchin monkey, admitted to a seat at the breakfast-table of a punc- 

 tilious family, would be apt to show his contempt of court by sticking 

 his head in the pudding-dish. The compulsive methods of professional 

 trainers may modify that perversity, but during recess the redeemed 

 four-hander is sure to drop his mask, and, unlike a trained dog, will 

 never volunteer the performance of a popular trick. 



About the beginning of this century an ingenious Frenchman 

 traveled about with a so-called chess-automaton, a wooden figure with 

 movable arms, manipulated by a hidden accomplice, and warranted to 

 play chess according to the rules of Devega's manual. As a mystify- 

 ing joke, the contrivance was quite a success, and, if any intelligent 

 person could really believe in the autonomy of the apparatus, the 

 silliness of the idea could hardly have surpassed the absurdity of the 

 parrot-stories which our popular family journals continue to retail in 

 this age of reason. Not more than a year ago, some modern Buffon, 

 after a learned disquisition on the comparative intelligence of beasts 

 and birds, treated his readers to the following " characteristic " anec- 

 dote : A Philadelphia family bought a parrot which could sing four or 

 five national hymns, but to the dismay of his Quaker proprietor proved 

 to have a still greater genius for blasphemous slang. Family worship 

 and the conversation of learned and pious visitors were apt to be in- 

 terrupted by a sudden cataract of Billingsgate, till the head of the 

 family ordered the bird, at the first sign of profanity, to be ducked in 



