54 TRAITS OF YOUNG CHIMPANZEES 



ample, situations or objects which are desired or Hked, disliked 

 or resented, avoided or feared, and so on. Our observations 

 of the animals ' vocal reactions, our descriptions of them, and 

 our attempts to interpret them, constitute the materials 

 for the remainder of this volume. It is my final task to tell 

 of systematic efforts to teach Chim to speak. 



After short acquaintance with the animal I concluded that 

 he would be an unusually good subject for speech tests. 

 Plans were therefore formulated for systematic training. 



Thus far during the past eight months, four methods of 

 speech instruction have been tried, and each in turn aban- 

 doned because of lack of positive results. 



In one wall of the observation room at Franklin, New 

 Hampshire, a small hole was cut to permit pieces of banana 

 to be delivered through a chute to a small receiving table in 

 the observation room. My thought was that the experi- 

 menter by going to this hole from time to time and making 

 such a sound as " ba, ba " in response to which pieces of ba- 

 nana would appear on the table, might not only attract the 

 attention of Chim to the relation of the sound to the much 

 desired fruit, but stir him to attempt to make the sound on his 

 own account. 



Once or twice a day for a period of some two weeks this 

 training test was conducted. Chim, at first greatly inter- 

 ested in the performance and eager to get pieces of banana, 

 gradually lost interest in everything except the food. He 

 made no attempt to reproduce the sound and the method was 

 finally abandoned as unsatisfactory. 



Some weeks later a box was constructed in which pieces of 

 banana codd be held ready for delivery on a little shelf or 

 table at the base of apparatus. This mechanism was 

 arranged so that it could be hung on the wall of the animal 's 



