AARON AND ELISHEBA m 



At the beginning of the voyage I took six panels 

 of my own cage and made a small cage for them. I 

 taught them to drink water from a beer-bottle with a 

 long neck that could be put through a mesh of the 

 wires. They preferred this mode of drinking, and 

 appeared to look upon it as an advanced idea. 

 Elisheba always insisted on being served first, and 

 being a female her wish was complied with. When 

 she had finished, Aaron would climb up by the wires 

 and take his turn. There is a certain sound or word 

 which the chimpanzee always uses to express good *' 

 or "satisfaction," and he made frequent use of it. 

 He would drink a few swallows of the water and 

 then utter the sound, whereupon Elisheba would 

 climb up again and taste it. She seemed to think it 

 was something better than she was drinking, but 

 finding it the same as she had had, she would again 

 give way for him. Every time he would use the 

 sound she would take another taste and turn away, 

 but she never failed to try it if he uttered the 

 sound. 



The boy who cared for them on the voyage was 

 disposed to play tricks on them, and one of these 

 ugly pranks was to turn the bottle up so that when 

 they had finished drinking and took their lips away, 

 the water would spill out and run down over them. 

 For a time or two they declined to drink from the 

 bottle while he was holding it, but when he let it 

 go it would hang in such a position that they could 

 not get the water out of it at all. At length Aaron 

 solved the problem by climbing up one side of the. 



