264 APES AND MONKEYS 



I have the vanity to believe that the methods of study 

 which I have employed will be made the means of farther 

 research by more able students than the writer. In addi- 

 tion to those apes that I have seen in a wild state, I have 

 seen about ten in captivity. Two of those were my own. 

 They were good subjects for study, and I made the best 

 use of them during the time I had them. 



While in the jungle I accomplished one thing, in which 

 I feel a just sense of pride, and that was making a gorilla 

 take a portrait of himself. This will interest the amateur 

 in the art of snapshots, and I shall relate it. 



I selected a place in the forest where I found some 

 tracks of the animal along the edge of a dense thicket 

 of batuna. Under cover of the foliage I set up two 

 pairs of stakes which were crossed at the tops, and to 

 them was lashed a short pole forming something like a 

 sawbuck. To this was fastened the camera, to which had 

 been attached a trigger made of bamboo splits. One end 

 of a string was fastened to the trigger, and the other end 

 carried under a yoke to a distance of eight feet from the 

 lens. At this point were attached a fresh plantain stalk 

 and a nice bunch of the red fruit of the batuna. Upon 

 this point the camera was focused, the trigger was set, 

 and it was left to await the gorilla. That afternoon I 

 returned to find that something had taken the bait, broken 

 the string, sprung the trigger, and snapped the camera. I 

 developed the plate, but could find no image of anything 

 except the leaves in front of it. I repeated the experi- 

 ment, with similar results, but could not understand how 

 anything could steal the bait and yet not be shown in the 



