50 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
While the orang-utan is quiet and unobtrusive, and not as good an 
animal for exhibition purposes as the chimpanzee, I believe him to be 
almost, if not altogether, as intelligent. He is not always inventing 
countless new ways of amusing himself and working off a superabun- 
dant store of physical and mental energy, as does his African cousin, 
but when it comes to solving problems to satisfy his own needs or de- 
sires, and to doing things that are really worthwhile, he manifests 
wonderful intellectual power. 
A few years ago the Edwards Brothers owned a large orang-utan 
which they called Joe. He was remarkably intelligent and learned 
the meaning of about seventy words and expressions. He knew all the 
coins from the silver dollar down to the copper cent, and would in- 
variably pick out the one asked for. One day the janitor made a 
mistake in filling a lamp, using gasoline instead of coal oil. When 
lighted, the lamp, which was directly in front of Joe’s cage, took 
fire all over and exploded, burning Joe severely. After that he was 
always afraid of a lamp. If he wanted anything, he gave a peculiar 
call, and then when one of the proprietors or one of his keepers came to 
the cage, he gave him a push to send him off in the direction of the 
object desired. One night he had thus called up Solomon Edwards, 
father of the two Edwards brothers. He kept sending Mr. Edwards 
off to the back of the room, but nothing the old gentleman brought 
seemed to satisfy him. Now it chanced there was a lantern, belong- 
ing to the watchman, which was hanging in the back of the room, in- 
visible to Mr. Edwards, but where Joe could see it from his cage, and 
this lantern having been turned too high, was blazing up and smoking. 
When Mr. Edwards discovered it and turned down the wick, the orang 
was satisfied. It was plain that he recognized the flame was blazing 
too high and that he feared another explosion. 
On another occasion Joe exhibited what is, to my mind, one of the 
keenest and most complicated mental processes ever displayed by an 
animal. On the day in question, there chanced to be an English walnut 
lying near the cage, but just beyond his reach. He made several inef- 
fectual attempts to secure it by stretching out his long arms. Then 
he tried to twist some of the straw on the floor of his cage into a rope 
or wand, but the straw was too brittle and too much broken. It is 
no uncommon thing for the apes, and even some of the lower monkeys, 
and especially the spider monkeys, to twist straw into a rope or wand 
to serve some of their needs. At length the orang began to take off his 
sweater,” a knit woolen jacket which he was wearing. We wondered 
