ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
MAJOR PENNY AND JOHN 
May, 1919. 
besides which, we were afraid the people in 
the neighborhood would complain. As soon as 
possible my nephew had his bed made up every 
night in the room adjoining the cage, with the 
result that John was quite happy, and at once 
began to grow and put on weight. 
By this time I was getting to like John, and 
to take a great interest in him. I fed him, 
washed his hands, face and feet twice a day, 
and brushed and combed his hair—which_ he 
would try and do himself whenever he got hold 
of the brush or comb. He soon got to like all 
this. My next idea was to teach him to be 
strictly clean in his habits. It was my ambi- 
tion to be able to have him upstairs in our 
house at 15 Sloane Street, as an ordinary mem- 
ber of the household. I taught him first as 
a child is taught and handled. This took some 
time. At first I could not make him understand 
what was expected of him, even though I always 
petted him, and gave him grapes (of which he 
was especially fond, when he first came to us), 
but I think he imagined that this treatment was 
a punishment. At first, without other reasons, 
he would roll on the floor and shriek, but directly 
he understood what was expected of him he soon 
learned and began to behave excellently. This 
training occupied quite six weeks. About Febru- 
ary, 1919, we took him out of his cage and 
allowed him the freedom of the house. There- 
after he would run upstairs to the bathroom 
of his own accord, turning the door knob of 
119 
whatever room he was in and also opening the 
door of the bathroom. 
Jchn’s appetite seemed to tire of foods very 
quickly. The only thing he stuck to was milk, 
which he always liked best when warmed. We 
began by giving him a quart a day, raising to 
three and a half quarts a day. I found that 
he preferred to choose his own food, so I used 
to place for him several kinds, such as bananas, 
oranges, apples, grapes, raisins, currants, dates 
and any small fruit in season, such as raspber- 
ries or strawberries, all of which he especially 
liked to have warmed. These displays I placed 
on a high shelf in the kitchen, where he could 
get them with difficulty. I think that he thought 
himself very clever when he stole anything. He 
never would eat anything stale. He was ex- 
tremely fond of jelly, especially fresh lemon 
jelly, which was often made for him, but he 
never would touch it after the second day. 
Oranges or apples, or any fruit that had been 
cut he would never eat after a few hours. He 
loved roses, to eat, more than anything! The 
more beautiful they were the more he liked them, 
but he never would eat faded roses. As a con- 
sequence I hardly ever was able to have roses in 
the vases. He also liked nibbling twigs, and 
to eat the green buds of trees. 
When he first came to us, I found that nuts 
gave him dreadful spells of indigestion, for 
after eating them he would lie down on the floor 
and groan. As he grew older he became very 
fond of peanuts baked in the oven, and they 
seemed to agree with him very well. He never 
cared very much for nuts of any other kind, 
except walnuts. With cocoanuts he was very 
funny. He knew that they had to be broken, 
and he would try and break them on the floor. 
When he found he couldn’t manage that, he 
would bring the big nut to one of us and try 
to make us understand what he wished. If we 
gave him a hammer he would try to use it 
on the nut and on not being able to manage that, 
he always gave back to us both the hammer and 
the cocoanut. He knew what hammers and chis- 
els were for, but for obvious reasons we never 
encouraged him in anything to do in the line of 
carpentry. 
John loved to have people come to see him 
in his home. At first we used to admit every 
one who asked, but after a while I found this 
was impossible. Very soon we were compelled 
to limit visitors to those introduced by personal 
friends, or people who wished to see him from a 
scientific standpoint. Whenever people came to 
see him, he would show off like a child. It was 
his custom to take them by the hand and lead 
