72 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



only sufficient to display on rare occasions. What little there 

 is of it, in animals over six years of age, is very deep and 

 guttural, and may best be described as a deep-bass roar. Under 

 excitement the orang can produce a roar by inhalation. 

 Young orangs under two years of age often whine, or shriek or 

 scream with anger, like excited human children, but with their 

 larger growth that vocal power seems to leave them. 



Despite the difference in temperament and quickness in 

 delivery, I regard the measure of the orang-utan's mental 

 capacity as being equal to that of the chimpanzee; but the 

 latter is, and always will remain, the more alert and showy 

 animal. The superior feet of the chimpanzee in bipedal work 

 is for that species a great advantage, and the longer toes of 

 the orang are a handicap. Although the orang's sanguine 

 temperament is far more comforting to a trainer than the 

 harum-scarum nervous vivacity of the chimpanzee, the value 

 of the former is overbalanced, on the stage, by the superior 

 acting of the chimp. For these reasons the trainers generally 

 choose the chimp for stage education. 



The chimpanzee is not only nervous and quick in thought 

 and in action, but it is equally so in temper. It will play with 

 any good friend to almost any extent, but the moment it sus- 

 pects malicious unfairness, or what it regards as a "mean 

 trick, " it instantly becomes angry and resentful. Once when 

 I attempted to take from our large black-faced chimpanzee, 

 called Soko, a small lump of rubber which I feared she 

 might swallow, my efforts were kindly but firmly thwarted. 

 At last, when I diverted her by small offerings of chocolate, 

 and at the right moment sought by a strategic movement to 

 snatch the rubber from her, the palpable unfairness of the 

 attempt caused the animal instantly to fly into a towering 

 passion, and seek to wreak vengeance upon me. Her lips 

 Idrew far back in a savage snarl, and she denounced my perfidy 

 by piercing cries of rage and indignation. She also did her 



