Herrick, Instinctive Traits of Animals. 131 



psychic influences. The same sound is interpreted to mean the 

 same thing and obeyed in the same manner by different monkeys 

 of the same species. Different sounds are accompanied by dif- 

 ferent gestures, and produce different results under the same 

 conditions." "Each race or kind of monkey has its own pecul- 

 iar tongue, slightly shaded into dialects, and the radical sounds 

 do not appear to have the same meaning in the different tongues. 

 The phonetic character of their si)eech is equally as high as that 

 of children in like state of mental development, and seems to 

 obey the same laws of phonetic growth, 'change, and decay as 

 human speech. " While the present writer has been unable to 

 see that data adequate to prove the last statement are at our dis- 

 posal, the methods given certainly tend to confirm the general 

 drift of these aphorisms. 



One of the most instructive of the experiments recorded is 

 the following : "I secured a very fine phonograph record of 

 the food-sound of the Rhesus monkeys belonging to the park. 

 During the following night there arrived at the park a shipment 

 of Rhesus monkeys just from their home in the east of Asia. 

 There were seven of these new monkeys, three adult females 

 and four babies, one of whom was left an orphan by the death 

 of its mother on the passage across the ocean. At my request 

 the superintendent had these monkeys stored in the upper story 

 of the old armory building. They had never seen the monkeys 

 in Central Park, nor had they been brought near enough to the 

 monkey-house for them to learn by any means that any other 

 monkeys were there. About sunrise I repaired to this room 

 where I had my phonograph placed in order, and I enjoined 

 those who were present by special permission not to do anything 

 to attract the attention of the monkeys, nor under any condition 

 to show them food or anything to drink. 



"Having arranged my phonograph, I delivered to them the 

 sounds obtained on my cylinder which I had recorded on the 

 day preceding. Up to this time not a sound had been uttered 

 by any inmate of the shipping cage. The instant my phono- 

 graph began to reproduce the record, the seven new monkeys 

 began to answer vociferously. After having delivered this 

 record to them, I gave them time to become quiet again. I 

 showed them some carrots and apples, on seeing which they 



