THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 8 1 



marbles, and besides, a trifling outlay in this 

 way will very much prolong- their lives. A mon- 

 key is always happy if he has something to play 

 with and plenty to eat. I do not know of any 

 investment of mine which ever yielded such a 

 great return in pleasure as one little pocket match- 

 safe, which cost me twenty-five cents and which 

 I gave to Nellie one evening to play with. I 

 had put into it a small key to make it rattle, and 

 also some bits of candy. She rattled the box, 

 and found some pleasure in the noise it made. 

 I showed her a few times how to press the spring 

 in order to open it, but her little black fingers 

 were not strong enough to release the spring 

 and make the lid fly open. However, she 

 caught the idea, and knew that the spring was 

 the secret which held it, and when she found 

 that she could not open it with her fingers, she 

 tried it with her teeth. Failing in this she 

 turned to the wall, and standing upright on the 

 top of her cage, she took the box in both hands 

 and struck the spring against the wall until the 

 lid flew open. She was perfectly delighted at 

 the result, and for the hundredth time at least 

 I closed the box for her to open again. On the 

 following day, when some friends came in to 



