THE TAMING OF YOUNG ANIMALS 209 



are well treated and not unduly forced to do tricks when they are 

 unwilling, chimpanzees show extreme affection and docility. They 

 recognise their friends after long absences and show the greatest 

 excitement and joy when they return. It is unnecessary to describe 

 all that they have been taught to do ; they ride cycles, perform 

 on the trapeze, put on and off clothes, open or close doors, help in 

 sweeping their cages, use forks and spoons, cups and drinking-glasses. 

 In the famous case of Sally, the late Professor Romanes, with the 

 patient help of Mansbridge, the keeper, taught that chimpanzee 

 a trick with straws which quite possibly implied the power of 

 counting up to five. Mansbridge has recently taught two young 

 chimpanzees in the London Zoological Gardens a very interesting 

 performance which they carry out at the command of his voice, 

 with little help from gestures. When he brings visitors to the 

 room, he unlocks the door from the outside and calls them to come 

 and open it. He then bids them salute, and they at once chmb 

 on a shelf and, sitting alongside, place their right hands to their 

 foreheads. Next a cup of milk and a spoon are given to one of them 

 and he is told to feed his sister. He proceeds to feed her with the 

 spoon, until he is told that he may now take some himself. After 

 a varying number of spoonfuls, Mansbridge says, " Now put 

 down the spoon and drink it out of the cup," which the animal 

 at once does. The older monkey is then given two pieces of apple 

 or banana, one large and one small, and told to give one to his 

 sister ; he has learned to select and give her the larger piece. If 

 there is a lady and a man amongst the visitors he is told to offer 

 a piece to them, and invariably carries out what he has been taught 

 by giving the larger bit to the lady and the smaller to the man, 

 certainly distinguishing between the pieces and the visitors without 

 any direction from the keeper. 



Gibbons are less inteUigent, but young gibbons soon become docile 

 and are always gentle and friendly. One of those now at the London 

 Zoological Gardens has been taught to swing round and round 

 a bar holding on by his hands, and to stop and reverse at the word 

 of command. All young baboons and African, Asiatic and Ameri- 

 can monkeys that I have seen are quite ready to become gentle 

 and tame and to take to human beings, and the various ingenious 

 tricks that they have been taught are weU known. Lemurs are 

 less intelligent, but are equally ready to become tame. 



Performing chimpanzees seldom live for more than a few years, 

 and I have never seen one that was nearly adult. At the Zoological 



C.A. O 



