THE CHIMPANZEE 31 



it is evident that the doubling of the straws is intended to save trouble by getting 

 the sum completed with greater rapidity. Of course we do not recognize these 

 doubled straws as equivalent to two straws, and therefore the persistency with 

 which she endeavors to palm them off as such is the more noteworthy. Moreover, 

 I am disposed to think that the uncertainty which attends her dealing with the 

 numbers six and seven is more due to her losing patience than to her losing count ; 

 although after seven I believe that her computation of the numbers becomes 

 vague. ' ' 



HEAD OF CHIMPANZEE " MAFUKA. " 



Before her death as we have been informed by Dr. Romanes, "Sally" was 

 able to count up to as many as ten straws ; and if her life had been prolonged she 

 might even have advanced beyond this. Dr. Romanes proceeds to state that it 

 would be unreasonable to assume that this chimpanzee really employed any system 

 of notation in delivering the correct tale of straws, and we may rather consider that 

 she executed her task by a direct perception of the difference between a higher and 

 lower number, without any actual process of counting ; this inference being con- 

 firmed by the power possessed by men of simultaneously estimating with accuracy 

 the number of a low series of small objects set before them without any direct 

 enumeration. 



