274 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



ever, understand the matter very well, for when he suc- 

 ceeded in getting the rope round the box, he did not seem 

 aware of his advantage, flung it away, went off for his 

 shawl, and used it very sucessfully. I then tied a block 

 of wood to the rope to assist in throwing it. He attempted 

 this spontaneously, at first without success. Presently, 

 however, he happened to pitch the block right into the 

 box, which to-day was open, pulled it in, and got the 

 banana. Notwithstanding this signal success, he never 

 took to this trick. 



At the next trial, he tried to use his rug, until I confiscated it ; 

 but after one or two unsuccessful trials, he succeeded in throwing 

 the block beyond the box, and roping it in. At the next trial he 

 failed again, and tried a smaller shawl, which I was also compelled 

 to confiscate. Bereft of all other means, he threw the block once 

 more, but hit the wrong side. One more failure stirred my com- 

 punction, and I gave him the banana, and restored his confiscated 

 property. The next day he would not throw the block, but used 

 the rope with success. At length, however, he refused to go on 

 with this method. Evidently he had considerable physical diffi- 

 culty in throwing at all well. 1 



In another connection, however, he would also use the 

 rope with some ingenuity. In the experiment to which I 

 have already referred, when the box was tied to a rope, 

 the further end of which was passed over a stanchion 

 several feet from the cage, he failed, as I shall mention 

 later, to find the right method, but was fertile in devising 

 wrong ones. He would shake the rope violently, so that 

 the banana would fall out of the box. He would then 

 swing the rope to and fro, swishing the banana about from 

 side to side, until by degrees it would come within his 

 reach, in a way which I should have thought beforehand 

 to be quite impossible. 



Jimmy was much slower in learning the use of the stick, 

 but he had probably had no previous experience like that 

 with the rug. I began by placing a nut in the crook of a 



1 Pechuel-Losche (Brehm's Thierleben, I., p. 50) has given reasons 

 for repudiating the common view that many monkeys in the natural state 

 use stones, nuts, etc., as missiles. Miss Romanes' observations, however, 

 show beyond doubt that her Cebus threw things at people deliberately. 

 (Animal Intelligence, p. 485, etc.) 



