CHAP, xii ARTICULATE IDEAS 271 



articulateness and originality of which I speak from some 

 experiments which I made with the monkeys at Belle Vue. 



My principal dealings were with two monkeys. One was the 

 little Rhesus Jimmy, which has already been mentioned more than 

 once, and which came to stay with me for several days. Jimmy 

 was not altogether a hopeful subject for experiments. His 

 attention was terribly dissipated. In the monkey house, every 

 noise distracted him, and he would break off in the middle of a 

 most promising experiment to run backwards and forwards in his 

 cage, in sympathy with the monkeys in the large cage opposite. He 

 seldom appeared to be hungry ; but I found at last that he would 

 do almost anything for a baked potato. After that discovery, we 

 got on better. 1 Nor can I praise Jimmy's temper. I have 

 already mentioned that he flew at all women and children ; and 

 though he tolerated me, and would climb about me as if I were a 

 piece of furniture, he never showed a trace of affection. In my 

 house, I found that his chief passion was for the fire. He would 

 sit on the edge of the fender, or stand on his hind legs, close to the 

 high, old-fashioned grate, with scarcely two inches between his 

 chest and the flames. But though I once noticed him touch a 

 bar, and draw his hand quickly away, he never burnt himself with 

 the hot cinders. The black cinders he ate freely, and packed his 

 cheek pouches with them. 



The other monkey of which I saw most was the chimpanzee, 

 which for reasons of my own I called the Professor. The diffi- 

 culty with the Professor is his extremely retiring and unsociable 

 disposition. No one can approach him with whom he is not quite 

 familiar j and after an acquaintance of two months, he will only 

 take a banana from my hand at arm's length, amid great trepi- 

 dation. It is therefore very difficult to show the Professor any- 

 thing. When, for instance, I tried to instruct him in the push 

 bolt, I had always to leave the box in the cage, and retire myself, 

 before he would come near it. 



2. When I first saw the Professor, he had already elab- 

 orated a somewhat remarkable performance. He lives 

 for warmth in a cage enclosed within a larger cage or 

 house. Passers by threw nuts and other gratifying objects 



1 In this want of persistence, Jimmy contrasts strongly with the Cebus 

 described by Miss Romanes. Nor did Jimmy show any of that " tireless 

 spirit of investigation " which Dr. Romanes found in the same animal. 

 The only thing Jimmy investigated was his own person, and in this he 

 certainly did seem absolutely tireless. But he showed extremely little 

 curiosity, and no persistence in working at anything, except for the sake 

 of food. 



