32 APES AND MONKEYS. 



although after seven I believe that her computation of the numbers becomes 

 vague." 



Before her death, as we have been, informed by Dr. Romanes, " Sally " was 

 able to count up to as many as ten straws ; and if her life had been prolonged she 

 might even have advanced beyond this. Dr. Romanes proceeds to state that it 

 would be unreasonable to assume that this chimpanzee really employed any system 

 of notation in delivering the correct tale of straws, and we may rather consider that 

 she executed her task by a direct perception of the difference between a higher and 



w. 



HEAD OF CHIMPANZEE "MAFUKA." 



lower number, without any actual process of counting ; this inference being con- 

 firmed by the power possessed by men of simultaneously estimating with accuracy 

 the number of a low series of small objects set before them without any direct 

 enumeration. 



In addition to these attempts to determine " Sally's " capacity for numbers, 

 Dr. Romanes instituted a series of experiments designed to test her powers of 

 recognising and distinguishing between colours. "It appeared to me," says the 

 experimenter, " that if I could once succeed in getting her to know the names of 

 black, white, red, green, or blue, a possible basis might have been laid for further 

 experiments wherein these five colours could have been used as signs of artificially 

 associated ideas. The result, however, of attempting to teach her the names of 



