200 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



of the cage with so great a fear that we had to remove the snake 

 at once. Immediately afterwards the bird came to the bars and 

 pecked at my fingers in a friendly way, and showed the same atten- 

 tion to the guinea-pig. It was not a shy bird or timorous, but it 

 knew snakes and feared them. 



Moreover,nearly every kind of mammal that we tried was indifferent 

 to snakes. Guinea-pigs and rats would run over them ; a hyrax, 

 which is both intelligent and which from living in trees and on 

 rocks must often encounter snakes, was hardly even interested. 

 When the snake touched it with its tongue, the hyrax moved back 

 suddenly, just as when some one it did not know touched it, but 

 immediately afterwards stretched out and sniffed at the reptile, 

 and then, satisfied that it was not good to eat, took no further 

 notice. Small carnivores, dogs, foxes and wolves, sheep, antelopes 

 and deer, zebras and donkeys were either quite indifferent or came 

 up to the bars and sniffed, and then, deciding that the snake was 

 not a bun or piece of sugar, moved away with an air of wearied 

 disgust at having been deceived. As monkeys are well known to 

 recognise snakes, we tried nearly every different kind in the Zoo- 

 logical Gardens. Lemurs of all kinds have no dread of snakes and 

 show no trace of any knowledge of them. Without exception, 

 they all came to the bars of their cages expecting to be fed, and 

 tried to snap at the snake as they would at any kind of food. The 

 small American monkeys, which are less intelligent than the monkeys 

 of the Old World, were uncertain in their behaviour. Several 

 marmosets, although these are shy and timid creatures, and must 

 often be the victims of snakes in their native land, acted rather 

 like lemurs, being indifferent or very curious. Capuchins and 

 howlers, spider monkeys and woolly monkeys, however, nearly all 

 behaved like their Old World allies. And there is doubt as to the 

 recognition of snakes by the ordinary macaques and cercopitheques, 

 the baboons and mandrills. As soon as a snake is brought into 

 the monkey-house there is a great outcry. The first monkey that 

 sees it gives a peculiar scream and dashes off to the highest and 

 furthest part of the cage, and the others at once come to see what 

 is the matter, and in turn dash away. From the largest baboon 

 down to the smallest macaque all were equally frightened and 

 excited. At the Royal Institution I showed a snake successively 

 to a lemur, a very young cebus monkey and a young Arabian 

 baboon. The lemur had been born at the London Zoological 

 Gardens and probably had never seen a snake until that day ; 



