DE. TH. NEUMANN. 203 



We must not even expect that their language is 

 capable of shading sentences into narrative or giving 

 a complaint in detail, but we are justified to think that 

 their present form of speech is developed far above a 

 mere series of grunts and groans, and that some species 

 among them have a more copious and expressive speech 

 or higher phonetic types than others. 



Surely such language will be exceedingly simple, as 

 one certain sound alone expressing something may be 

 suflScient for the monkey, which, in his simple life, has 

 not many wants, not many and great emotions, and as 

 moreover there may be three or four inflections to the 

 same sound, each with a meaning of its own. Mr. Gar- 

 ner makes no claim that monkeys or other animals have 

 different sounds for the kinds of food, as bread, apple, 

 milk, etc. ; in some instances, however, he had some 

 cause to believe that simians use a few specific terms in 

 their vocabulary, such as a word for monkey, and 

 another for banana. He has experimented with these 

 sounds and found out that the monkey uniformly uses a 

 certain word on seeing another monkey or his own image 

 in the looking-glass, especially if he has been kept away 

 from other monkeys for a long time. In the same way Mr. 

 Garner has noticed that if a monkey is fed upon milk 

 and bread for some time without receiving any bananas, 

 when a banana is shown him, he seems to use a sound 

 which is slightly different from the common sound of 

 food. 



One thing, however, is by far more certain, namely 

 that monkeys of the same species in London or New 

 York, say precisely the same things over and over again 

 when they are hungry, or thirsty, or afraid. This fact, 

 at least, lays a foundation for future study. We have 

 the same differences in languages and dialects among 

 monkeys as among men, and the mental development of 

 the different tribes plays an important part, or rather is 



