112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing my neck with both, arms, invoked my protection in a mumble 

 so expressive and persistent that I had to gratify him by stamped- 

 ing the dogs. 



In the art of gaining allies in a perilous emergency, our four- 

 handed cousins can, indeed, rival the tricks of a Turkish diplo- 

 mat. Whenever my little Chacma incurred the displeasure of his 

 big relative, he would make common cause with the spaniel by 

 patting his back and expurgating his fur with feverish haste, and, 

 at the approach of the vindictive Cutch, often managed to push 

 his ally to the front and make him stand the brunt of the inevi- 

 table scuffle ; and when my negro boy-of -all-work once caught 

 him on the top shelf of a cupboard, he at once made a rush for 

 the lap of an incidental visitor, and with screams and excited 

 gestures urged him to treat the young African as a common 

 enemy. 



A less pleasant character -trait was his tendency to vent his 

 resentments on impartial by-standers. His morbid passion for 

 chewing-tobacco often induced him to pick the pockets of my 

 mail-carrier, and, after the consequent spanking, he repeatedly 

 sneaked up on the porch to " take it out " of an old tabby who 

 made the corner of the veranda her favorite roost and submitted 

 to such outrages with the patience of a poor servant-girl bearing 

 the vicarious brunt of a family squabble. A similar display of 

 spite often makes existence a burden to the cage-companions of a 

 Hanuman ape, a chief saint of the zoological pantheon of Brahman- 

 ism. In Hindostan the undisputed prestige of that eupeptic demi- 

 god secures him a constant surfeit of tidbits, and in Western 

 menageries the lack of appreciation and cream-pies often provokes 

 him to snub his secular fellow-captives with the vindictive arro- 

 gance of an exiled abbot. 



In the semi-human apes the concupiscent curiosity of the 

 genus often takes the form of abstract inquisitiveness — the root 

 of all heresies. A young chimpanzee, that accompanied me on my 

 last return trip from Antwerp, would examine the construction of 

 a padlock with the interest of an amateur mechanic, and once 

 passed a whole hour in the vain endeavor to solve the enigma of 

 a baby-rattle — a perforated shell inclosing a number of metal 

 pellets. After scrutinizing the marvel from all possible points of 

 view, he made a cautious attempt to open the shell with his teeth, 

 but the reprimand of a spectator at once made him relinquish that 

 plan. He then deposited the shell on a rug, and, turning it over 

 and over, frequently stopped to listen, as if comparing the results 

 of his various experiments. My Cutch baboon, too, will examine 

 a picture-book, page for page, and occasionally use his fingers to 

 verify the impression of a striking illustration — an expedient 

 which apparently fails to dispel the illusion of a looking-glass, for. 



