THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 187 



wishing to bring him to Europe as nearly as possible 

 in his natural condition." * 



Romanes's sister has the following about the capu- 

 cine ape already mentioned: " To-day he broke his chain 

 . . . and got to the trunk where the nuts are kept, . . . 

 and began picking at the lock with his fingers. I then 

 gave him the key, and he tried for two full hours, 

 without ceasing, to unlock the trunk. It was a very 

 difficult lock to open, being slightly out of order, and 

 requires the lid of the trunk to be pressed down before 

 it would work, so I believe it was absolutely impossible 

 for him to open it, but he found in time the right way 

 to put the key in, and to turn it backward and forward, 

 and after every attempt he pulled the lid upward to see 

 if it were locked. That this was the result of observ- 

 ing people is obvious from the fact that after every 

 time he put the key into the lock and failed to open 

 the trunk, he passed the key round and round the out- 

 side of the lock several times. The explanation of this 

 is that my mother's sight being bad, she often misses 

 the lock in putting in the key; the monkey therefore 

 evidently seems to think that this feeling round and 

 round the lock with the key is in some way necessary 

 to success in unlocking the lock, so that, although he 

 could see perfectly well how to put the key in straight 

 himself, he went through this useless operation first." f 



Similar observations were made with two dogs, 

 though imitation is nowhere so strong as with mon- 

 keys. Scheitlin describes his poodle's efforts at mim- 

 icry, which are in keeping with his remarkable intelli- 

 gence. " He watches his master constantly, always no- 



* Loango Expedition, ii, p. 152. 



f Romanes, Animal Intelligence, p. 492. 



