LIFE IN CAPTIVITY. 271 



When a number of schoolboys visited the office, he 

 ran towards them, went from one to the other, shook 

 one of them, bit the leg of another, seized the jacket 

 of a third with the right hand, jumped up, and with 

 the left gave him a sound box on the ear ; in short, 

 he played the wildest pranks. It seemed as if he 

 were infected with the joyous excitement of youth, 

 which induced him to riot with the troop of school- 

 boys. 



One day when Hermes gave his nine-year-old son 

 a slight tap on the head, on account of some mis- 

 calculation in his arithmetic, the chimpanzee, who 

 was also sitting at the table, gave the boy a smart 

 box on the ear. If Hermes pointed out to him that 

 some one was staring or mocking at him, and said, 

 " Do not put up with it," the creature cried, 

 " Oh ! oh ! " and rushed at the person in question 

 in order to strike or bite him, or express his dis- 

 pleasure in some other way. As he made dis- 

 tinctions in the age of human beings, so also with 

 animals. He was gentle and considerate in his 

 behaviour to young dogs and apes, while with older 

 animals he was as boisterous as he was with the 

 schoolboys. When he saw that Hermes was writing, 

 he often seized a pen, dipped it in the inkstand, and 

 scrawled upon the paper. He displayed a special 

 talent for cleaning the window-panes of the aquarium. 

 It was amusing to see him squeezing up the cloth, 

 moistening the pane with his lips, and then rubbing 

 it hard, passing quickly from one place to another. 



Mafuca was a remarkable creature, not only in 

 her external habits, but in her disposition. At one 



