STUDIES OF ANIMAL SPEECH. 439 



would have done better to choose parrots instead of monkeys for 

 his experiments ; but as his purpose is to learn the language of 

 animals, and not to teach them his own, he has done well to select 

 apes as the objects of his study. It must be confessed, however, 

 that the results of his investigations, embodied in his volume 

 recently published, are rather disappointing, and are, in fact, less 

 comprehensive, although doubtless more accurate, than the 

 observations made by Wenzel at the beginning of the present 

 century. He is prone to lay great stress upon matters that are 

 really of no importance whatever, as, for example, when he dis- 

 covers that " No," accompanied by a shake of the heads is the sign 

 of negation, and adds, "The fact that this sign is common to 

 both man and simian I regard as more than a mere coincidence, 

 and I believe that in this sign I have found the psycho-physical 

 basis of expression/' It is difficult to perceive how a logical 

 thinker could draw such a sweeping conclusion from so slight 

 premises. If he finds that gorillas and chimpanzees in their 

 native wilds, unaffected by human associations, express dissent by 

 shaking their heads and shouting " No ! " it will be a fact well 

 worth recording. 



Mr. Garner's superiority to his predecesssors in this depart- 

 ment of linguistic research consists in the greater excellence of 

 his material rather than of his mental equipment. The possession 

 of the phonograph alone gives him an immense advantage in this 

 respect, by enabling him to record and to repeat the utterances of 

 monkeys with perfect accuracy. Armed with this scientific 

 weapon of phonetic precision and all the instruments and appli- 

 ances which modern invention has placed at his disposal, he may 

 perhaps completely conquer a province of investigation hitherto 

 but partially explored, and, by making important contributions 

 to zooglottology and working out a system of alphabetical signs 

 for the language of the anthropoid race, become the Cadmus 

 of the simian world. 



A BENGALI in India has made & contribution toward the expenses of a " snake 

 laboratory " which it is proposed to establish in Calcutta. The work of the estab- 

 lishment will include the scientific examination of supposed cures for snake-bite, 

 and the investigation of the properties of the snake poison. The laboratory will 

 be the only institution of its kind in the world. 



THE expedition of Sir William Macgregor to Mount Owen Stanley in New 

 Guinea found a remarkable native bridge spanning the Vanapa River. It is a 

 woven bridge, suspended from trees on each bank, and is similar in every respect 

 to the bridges built by the Malays of Sumatra and the Dyaks of Borneo. The 

 view of it given in Mr. J. P. Thomson's British New Guinea shows it to be an 

 elegant and picturesque structure. 



