THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 25 



was that it was by quantity only. I first deter- 

 mined that he could tell singular from plural, by 

 making the one piece larger and sometimes of a 

 different shape, and from his choice of these I 

 quite satisfied my own mind that he could dis- 

 tinguish by number. I next set out to find how 

 far in numerals his acquirements reached, and 

 after a great number of indecisive trials I fell 

 upon this simple plan. I took a little square 

 wooden box and made a hole in one side just 

 large enough for the monkey to withdraw his 

 hand with a marble in it. I took three marbles 

 of the same size and color and gave them to the 

 monkey to play with. After a time I put the 

 marbles in a box and allowed him to take them 

 out, which he could do by taking out only one 

 at a time. I repeated this several times, so as to 

 impress his mind with the number of marbles in 

 the box. I then concealed one of the marbles 

 and returned two to the box. On taking them 

 out he evidently missed the absent one, felt in 

 the box, 'arose and looked around where he had 

 been sitting. Then he would put his hand into 

 the box again and look at me ; but failing to find 

 it, he became reconciled and began to play with 

 the two. When he had become content with 



