476 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



allusion to Sir W. Hoste's Memoirs, given by Jesse as 

 follows : — 



One of his officers, coming home after a long day's shoot- 

 ing, saw a female monkey running along the rocks, with 

 her young one in her arms. He immediately fired, and the 

 animal fell. On his coming up, she grasped her little one close 

 to her breast, and with her other hand pointed to the wound 

 which the ball had made, and which had entered above her 

 breast. Dipping her finger in the blood, and then holding it 

 up, she seemed to reproach him with being the cause of her 

 death, and consequently that of the young one, to which she 

 frequently pointed. * I never,' says Sir William, * felt so much 

 as when I heard the story, and I determined never to shoot one 

 of these animals as long as I lived.' ^ 



Mr. Darwin says that most persons who have observed 

 monkeys have seen them show a sense of the ludicrous. 

 Here is an instance which I have myself observed, and 

 now quote from my article in the * Quarterly Journal of 

 Science : ' — 



Several years ago I used to watch carefully the young orang- 

 outang in the Zoological Gardens, and I am quite sure that 

 she manifested a sense of the ludicrous. One example will suffice. 

 Her feeding tin was of a somewhat peculiar shape, and when it 

 was empty she used sometimes to invert it upon her head. 

 The tin then presented a comical resemblance to a bonnet, and 

 as its wearer would generally favour the spectators with a broad 

 grin at the time of putting it on, she never failed to raise a 

 laugh from them. Her success in this respect was evidently 

 attended with no small gratification on her part. 



But perhaps the strongest evidence of monkeys 

 having an appreciation of the ludicrous is the same as 

 that which we have seen to be presented in the case of 

 certain dogs — namely, in the animals disliking ridicule. 

 Abundant evidence on this head in the case of monkeys 

 will be given further on. 



That monkeys enjoy play no one can question who 

 spends on hour or two in the monkey-house at the 

 Zoological Gardens. According to Savage, chimpanzees 

 congregate together for the sole purpose of play, when 



* Gleanings, vol. iii. pp. 86-7. 



