ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



441 



The young tapii 



SOUTH AMERICAN TAPIR AND YOUNG. 

 April 22, 1908. Both the old and young ai 



111 the Primate House .ire creatures that so 

 closely parallel humanity, both in action and 

 structure, that it seems inappropriate to speak 

 of them as "wild animals." Young orang-utans 

 and chimpanzees are like children. They in- 

 sist upon throwing their arms about the keep- 

 ers' necks, to be carried about, and when the 

 men finally insist upon putting them down, they 

 scream lustily, or bump their heads against the 

 cage floor in infantile rage. Almost an3-one can 

 handle these young anthropoid apes, but in the 

 Monkey House there are manjf other animals of 

 very different temper. 



From the visitor's point of view, one of the 

 most vicious monkeys in the building is a big 

 Japanese red-faced monkey. This creature 

 often shakes his cage front, gripping it with 

 both hands, and using all his strength. Such 

 exhibitions are followed by what the brute evi- 

 dentlv intends to be an illustration of what he 

 would do if he had the chance. It consists of 

 l)lacing his hand in his mouth, and biting at it 

 quite savagely. Strange to say, this demoniacal 

 creature is perfectly gentle with his keepers. 

 By assisting him to walk upright, he can be led 

 about like a child. He is under such perfect 

 control that the men never have taken a stick or 

 whip into the cage. A mild cuff with the hand, 

 delivered by keeper Reilly or Engeholm, causes 

 the sour-visaged brute to wliimper and cringe, 

 but the instant the men close the door and leave 



the cage, Jake hurls himself at the bars as if to 

 avenge an imaginary insult from a visitor. 



As examples of actual affection among mam- 

 mals, we might select a woolly monkey and a 

 spider monkey, both on exhibition in the Prim- 

 ate House. At the rattle of the lock these ani- 

 mals spring for the cage door. The keeper 

 barely has a chance to open the door when a 

 jjair of long arms are wound about his neck and 

 the man finds himself in much the same predica- 

 ment as Sinbad. It is only with the help of an 

 associate that the burden can be dislodged. 

 Ordinarily, Keeper Reilly carries the strange 

 woolly monkey about with him, slung over his 

 back, rather than provoke the chorus of ear- 

 splitting shrieks that would follow if the monkey 

 were at once forced back into its cage. 



A considerable degree of docility is to be ob- 

 served among the inmates of the Reptile House. 

 There is a big Cuban iguana quartered in the 

 north corral of the Lizard and Tortoise Yards, 

 which is so fond of Keeper Toomey that when- 

 e\er the latter enters the corral the reptile 

 rushes to him, crawls up his back and to his 

 shoulders, where he perches contentedlj'. Nor 

 is this creature's interest in his keeper prompted 

 by appetite; for he behaves the same immediate- 

 ly after feeding time, when all of the iguanas 

 are so gorged they refuse further food. The 

 big tortoises are also docile, following their 

 keeper about their corral, but in them there is 

 so marked a decrease of interest after feeding 



