THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS 
245 
ments, from which he now writes, do not tend to 
clear away this difficulty. 
The Capuchins, which are alike the most voluble 
and the cleverest "of the smaller monkeys, have a 
sound which Professor Garner first translated as 
“food,” but to which he subsequently found he must 
attach a wider meaning. He now thinks that when 
modulated in one way the sound means a certain kind 
of food, and when modulated in another, it means 
“give,” or “give me that.” By repeating it to a 
Capuchin, he often induced it to hand over a part of 
its food, or some plaything. But it would be possible 
to infer from this that the sound was a mere expression 
of desire, and not really different from the mewing of 
a cat when it wants its kittens returned, or a door 
opened. The word for “ drink ” he still considers to 
be distinct from that expressing “ food,” and fixed 
alike in form and meaning. The sound which he took 
to mean “ weather,” because uttered by a sick monkey 
when a storm burst, has now resolved itself into a 
general expression of discontent. The alarm sound is 
dual, one form, “ e-c-g-k,” expressing fear, another, 
“ c-h-i,” merely calling attention. But some animals, 
such as the elephant, have more than one “ warning 
sound,” and warning sounds in themselves do not 
constitute “speech”; nor does the fact that the 
Professor has been able to reproduce and get replies 
to the “food sound” of the rhesus and cebus monkeys 
prove more than that he has been a clever and careful 
observer of a particular exclamation. He thinks, 
