MENTAL LIFE OF MONKEYS AND APES 115 



when admitted to the large cage, went directly to the box and 

 at once discovered the banana which was midway between the 

 ends. He evidently desired it. Shortly, he went to one end 

 of the box and looked in. This he repeated later. He also 

 shook the box and tried to pull it about and tear it with his 

 teeth, but to the tw^o poles lying nearby on the floor of the cage 

 he gave not the slightest attention during a thirty minute period 

 of observation. 



The experiment was not repeated because of more important 

 work. 



Other Activities 



In more respects than I have taken time to enumerate in the 

 above descriptions of behavior, the relations of Sobke to objects 

 differed from those of Skirrl, and still more from those of Julius. 

 Hammer, nails, saw, stones, sticks, locks, and various other 

 objects received relatively little attention from Sobke unless 

 they happened to come in his way ; then they were usually pushed 

 aside with but scant notice. Rarely he would carry something 

 to the shelf of his cage with him, but as a rule only to lay it 

 down and attend to something else. Skirrl, on the contrary, 

 attended persistently to anything new in the shape of a movable 

 object. He was extremely partial to objects which could be 

 manipulated by him in various ways, and especially to any- 

 thing with which he could make a noise. His interest in hammer 

 and nails, saw, locks, etc., seemed never to wane. I have seen 

 him play for an hour almost uninterruptedly with a hammer 

 and a nail, or even with a big spike which he could use to pry 

 about his cage. In the absence of anything more interesting, 

 even a staple or a small nail might receive his undivided atten- 

 tion for minutes at a time. How important is the species 

 difference in this connection, I have no means to judge, but if we 

 may not consider these different modes of behavior character- 

 istic of P. rhesus as contrasted with P. irus, we must conclude 

 that remarkable individual differences exist among monkeys, 

 for whereas Skirrl is by nature a mechanical genius, Sobke has 

 apparently no such disposition. I can imagine no more fasci- 

 nating task than the careful analytical study of the tempera- 

 ments of these two animals. Skirrl's behavior has importantly 

 modified my conception of genius. 



