436 USE OF MAN'S INSTRUMENTS. 



on at table, but as a mount to get at anything out of its or- 

 dinary reach (Houzeau, Pierquin, Cassell). An orang-utan 

 that used glass vessels for drinking from never broke them, 

 but ' put them carefully aside after using ' (Biichner) . 



The chimpanzee behaves in a similar way when a member 

 of man's household, using chairs, serviettes, glasses, cups 

 and saucers, spoons and forks, making beds, sweeping the 

 house, and assisting the cook in carrying water (Houzeau). 



Not a few animals have a knowledge of the use or effect of 

 various of man's weapons, and this knowledge inspires them 

 with a salutary dread that in its turn leads them to keep 

 beyond their range. Thus a dread of the gun is characteristic 

 of the crow, rook, and raven in our own country, where sad 

 experience has taught them too many practical lessons of its 

 dangerous power (Watson). To such an extent is this fear 

 carried, acting on their imagination, that the very sight of 

 a gun which may be empty or of anything resembling a 

 gun or a man with a gun, keeps these wary birds at least 

 out of rifle-range of man. 



But certain animals can, and do, turn man's weapons, 

 and successfully sometimes, against himself. Thus Drum- 

 mond describes a baboon that was wounded by a Kaffir's 

 spear as snatching the weapon from its own body and trying 

 to stab him with it, as well as plucking one that had missed 

 its mark and stuck in a tree and throwing it back at him, 

 ' though it came crossways, and not point first, as a spear 

 ought to.' Schweinfurth, too, tells us that chimpanzees 

 in Central Africa, when driven to bay by the Niam-niam 

 hunters, armed with spears, wrest these spears from their 

 human pursuers, against whom they 'make good use of 

 them.' The orai*g has been taught even to use man's fire- 

 arms (Watson). 



The horse, ass, pig, and perhaps some other animals, 

 help themselves to water occasionally by working pumps or 

 pump-handles. A pony has been known to turn on and 

 shut off a water tap with its teeth, letting on and stop- 

 ping the flow of water, satiating its thirst, and then pre- 

 venting waste ('Animal World'). This shutting the tap is, 

 like shutting gates or doors, the result of unusual care or 



