MONK b, YS — O tEN ERAL IN T KLLIGENCE. 
479 
believe anthropoid, but cannot tell the species — was in the great 
iron cage with a number of smaller monkeys, and was lording 
it over them wirh many wild gambols, to the amusement of a 
crowd of spectators. Many things — fruits and the like — had 
been thrown between the bars into the cage, which the ape was 
always forward to seize. At last some one threw in a small 
hand looking-glass, with a strongly made frame of wood. This 
the ape at once laid hold of, and began to brandish like a ham- 
mer. Suddenly he was arrested by the reflection of himself in 
the glass, and looked puzzled for a moment; then he darted his 
head behind the glass to find the other of his kind that he 
evidently supposed to be there. Astonished to find nothing, he 
apparently bethought himself that he had not been quick 
enough with his movement. He now proceeded to raise and 
draw the glass nearer to him with great caution, and then with 
a swifter dart looked behind. Again finding nothing, he re- 
peated the attempt once more. He now passed from astonish- 
ment to anger, and began to beat with the frame violently on 
the floor of the cage. Soon the glass was shattered, and pieces 
fell out. Continuing to beat, he was in the course of one blow 
again arrested by his image in the piece of glass still remaining 
in the frame. Then, as it seemed, he determined to make one 
trial more. More circumspectly than ever the whole first part 
of the process was gone through with ; more violently than ever 
the final dart made. His fury over this last failure knew no 
bounds. He crunched the frame and glass together with his 
teeth, he beat on the floor, he crunched again, till nothing but 
splinters was left. 
Mr. Darwin writes: ‘Rengger, a most careful ob- 
server, states that when first he gave eggs to his monkeys 
in Paraguay, they smashed them, and thus lost much of 
their contents ; afterwards they generally hit one end 
against some hard body, and picked off the bits with 
their fingers. After cutting themselves only once with 
any sharp tool, they would not touch it again, or would 
handle it with the greatest caution. Lumps of sugar 
were often given them wrapped up in paper ; and Reng- 
ger sometimes put a live wasp in the paper, so that in 
hastily unfolding it they got stung ; after this had once 
happened, they always first held the packet to their ears 
to detect any movement within . 5 1 
1 Descent of Man % pp. 77-8. 
