2o8 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



myself, have seen five, of different ages. They were all extremely 

 gentle and affectionate, ready to make friends at once, and amazingly 

 intelligent. Unfortunately they are very delicate, and seldom 

 live more than a few weeks in this country. Although no animals 

 are more attractive and none is more to be desired in a Zoo- 

 logical Collection, I have refused, as Secretary of the Zoological 

 Society of London, to encourage their importation by dealers, 

 and now decline to purchase them. If some one who was really 

 fond of animals and intelligent in managing them were to obtain 

 specimens in West Africa, and were to keep them there until 

 they had become thoroughly accustomed to human society and 

 to the food that they would afterwards receive, I see no reason 

 why they should not be successfully reared, and I have no doubt 

 but that they would be found to surpass the other great apes in 

 the humanity of their intelligence as they do in size and structure. 

 Orangs are better known because, although they, too, are delicate, 

 they have been reared much more successfully in captivity. The 

 adults in their native woods, the steaming tropical forests of the 

 Malay Archipelago, are almost as suspicious of man as the gorilla, 

 and their enormous jaws and powerful hands and feet make them 

 dangerous foes. Young orangs are extraordinarily docile and 

 very affectionate, and have been taught many strange tricks — to 

 wear clothes, to sit at table for their food and to eat and drink 

 with spoons and cups. They are slow and sedate in their move- 

 ments, and as they are watchful and attentive, they quickly learn 

 what their keepers wish them to do. But although they are more 

 hardy than gorillas, they have to be kept under such careful condi- 

 tions and have lives so uncertain that their training has never 

 reached very great lengths. 



Chimpanzees are much the most hardy of the anthropoid apes, 

 and their character and capacities are best known. They are all 

 extremely excitable, and occasionally fall into almost hysterical 

 fits of temper, when they scream loudly, and will bite even their 

 best friends, and as they have considerable strength and fight with 

 their teeth and hands and feet simultaneously, they are not always 

 quite safe. Because of this disposition, I dislike the use of chim- 

 panzees for performances at music-halls ; I am afraid that not 

 infrequently they have to be beaten to bring them up to the 

 prompter's bell, and I have noticed that the teeth of some of the 

 most advertised performing chimpanzees had been extracted or 

 broken off. Apart from occasional fits of temper, and if they 



