338 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
To get him to display his powers of observation and mimicry 
one had only to give him a mirror and comb. Holding the former 
high in one hand so that he could see the top of his head, he 
would go through all the actions of combing his hair and making 
a parting, but as he was almost completely bald this served little 
purpose other than showing off his cleverness. He would pull 
diabolical faces at himself in the mirror, baring his teeth and dis- 
torting his features in a fantastic manner—a thing he never did 
under normal circumstances. 
Cholmondley was at one time kept near a hibiscus hedge, the 
young leaves of which he devoured with relish. Whenever I threw 
him a banana and it fell short of the range of his chain, without 
hesitation he would select a long stick from the hedge, break it 
off, and then rake the banana to within reach. 
One of his most extraordinary spontaneous actions, which some 
people might interpret as mimicry but which I prefer to call 
intelligence, was on one occasion when I was dressing a small 
wound on my houseboy’s arm. We were standing on a high 
veranda some ten feet from the ground, when I stripped the 
gauze covering from a piece of adhesive tape and stuck the latter 
over the wound. Cholmondley was watching from below with his 
eagle eye. The import of the whole business had registered, for as 
the gauze that I had thrown away floated to earth he picked it 
up and pressed it on a small sore just above his own right eye! If 
Cholmondley had suddenly burst into song, my houseboy could 
hardly have been more surprised. 
One day when I was taking Cholmondley for a walk on his 
chain we passed close to my bicycle, which was leaning against a 
tree. He showed me in no uncertain manner that he wanted to 
mount the machine, so out of curiosity I sat on the saddle and he 
immediately took up his position in front of me, sitting on the 
crossbar and holding the handlebars. I took off and I could see he 
loved it. When we got on to the road I pedaled fast and eventually 
went down a hill at great speed, Cholmondley fairly grunting 
with delight. After that our joint cycle outings became a daily 
affair. The sight of us tearing along the road always set up a yell 
from any group of natives who witnessed this strange sight, and 
