The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals

ear old male. No sooner was the struggling animal deposited in the bottom of my own boat than it savagely seized the calf of my devoted leg and endeavored to bite therefro

like a son. Throughout four months of jungle vicissitudes he stuck to me. He was a high-class orang,-and be it known that many orangs are thin-headed scrubs, who never amount to anythi

r mind, and some of them traveled far to see him. Unfortunately the exigencies of travel and work compelled me to present him to an admiring friend in India. Mr. Andrew Carnegie and his then partner, Mr. J. W. Vandevorst,

types. Comparatively few investigators have found it possible to make extensive and prolonged observations of the most intelligent wild animals of the world, even in zoolog

unspoiled by civilization. Obviously, it is more interesting to fathom the mind of a creature in an absolute state of nature than of one whose ancestors have been bred and reared in the trammels of domestication and for many successive generations have bowed to th

animal species with which the writer is acquainted. Primarily this is due to the fact that intellectually and temperamentally, as well as anatomically, these a

age, is very deep and guttural, and may best be described as a deep-bass roar. Under excitement the orang can produce a roar by inhalation. Young orangs unde

owy animal. The superior feet of the chimpanzee in bipedal work is for that species a great advantage, and the longer toes of the orang are a handicap. Although the orang's sanguine temperament is far more comforting to a traine

black-faced chimpanzee, called Soko, a small lump of rubber which I feared she might swallow, my efforts were kindly but firmly thwarted. At last, when I diverted her by small offerings of chocolate, and at the right moment sought by a strategic movement to snatch the rubber from her, the palpable unfairness of the attempt caused t

s quickly as possible I thrust my handkerchief between the bars, and waved it vigorously, to attract him. At once the animal came down to me, to secure another trophy, and before he realized his position I successfully snatched the charm from him, and

of various sizes, I am convinced that the facts do not warrant that conclusion. The orang-utans of the New York Zoological Park certainly have been as cheerful in disposition, as fond of exercise and as fertile in droll performances as our chimpanzees. Even though the mind of the chimpanzee does act more quickly tha

ht, some are too obstinate, and others are too impatient of restraint. Some orang-utans are hopelessly indifferent to the business in hand, and refuse to become interested in it. I think that no orang is too dull to learn to sit at a table, and eat with the utensils that are usually considered sacred to man's use, but

tal qualities. They differed widely from each other. One was a born actor and imitator, who loved human partnership in his daily affairs. The other was an origina

m and jaw marked him at once as belonging to the higher caste of orangs. Dealers and experts have no difficulty in recognizing at one glance a

orangs should perform in public, we instructed the primate keepers to proceed along certain lines and educate them to that idea. Naturally, the performance was laid out to match our own possibilities. In a public park

th no real difficulty, our orangs were tr

, pouring out milk from a teapot into a teacup, drinking out of a teacup, drinking out of a beer-

a tricycle,

enders, put on a sweater or coat, and a cap, rev

e nails wi

his became able to select the right Yale key out of a bunch of half a doze

ns. He caught the two ideas almost instantly, and soon brought his muscles und

ur others. From the first moment, the training operations were to him both interesting and agreeable. The animal enjoyed the wor

ground. Every day at four o'clock lusty Rajah was carried to the exhibition space, and set free upon the ground. Forthwith the keepers proceeded to dress him in trousers, vest, coat and cap. The moment the last button

ook a drink (of tea) from a suspicious-looking black bottle, the audience always laughed. When he elevated the empty bottle to one eye and looked far into it, they roared; and when he finally took a toothpick

, indifference or meanness. The flighty, nervous temper of the chimpanzee was delightfully absent. The most remarkable feature of

coli) imported from the Galapagos Islands by elephant tortoises, his mind would have been developed much farther. Since his death, in 1902, we have had other orang-utans th

challenged our admiration, but also created much work for our carpenters. He discovered, or invented, as you please, the lever as a mechanical force,-as fairly and squarely as Archimedes discovered the principle of the screw. More

tion: THUMB-PRINT

xperts in the New Yor

e unable to recognis

se than tha

tion: "RAJAH," TH

s he learned to

ely dull, and the donning of fashionable clothing was a frivolous pastime, On the other hand, the interior of his cage, and his gymnastic appliances of ropes, trapeze

e discovery that he could break the wooden one and one-half inch horizontal bars that were held out from his cage walls on cast iron brackets, was for him a great day. Before his discovery was noted by the keepers he had joyful

the cast-iron brackets, and one by one they gave way. Some were broken off, and others were torn from the wall by the breaking of the screws that held them. Knowing that all those brackets must be changed immediately, Dohong was left to destroy t

THE LEVER THAT OUR OR

IT By W. A. Camadeo

can,"

kets was not to be overcome by prying at the horizontal bar itself. It was then that Dohong's inventive genius rose to its climax. He decided to attack the brackets singly, and conquer them one by one. On examining the situation very critically, he found that each bracket consisted of a right- angled triangle of wrought iron, with its perpendicular side against the wall, its base uppermost, and its hypot

feet long. Originally it was so firmly nailed that no one believed that it could be torn from its place. [Footnote: In the Winter of 1921 about a dozen newspapers in the United States published a sensational syndicated article, occupying an entire page, in which all of Dohong's lever discovery and cage-wrec

mptly checked. Our next task consisted in making long bolts by which the brackets of the horizontal bars were bolted e

he balcony of his cage. Both of those structures he tore completely to pieces,-always working with the utmost good nature and cheerfulne

isitor to the Park, Mr. L. A. Camacho, an engineer, was so much impressed that

of his next- door neighbor. Very soon after he discovered the use of the lever, he swung his trapeze bar out to the upper corner of his cage, thrust the end of it out between the fi

e straw of his bedding into a rope six or seven feet long, then thr

with ropes of straw twisted by himself, with keys, locks, hammer, nails and boxes. Any man who can witness such manifestations as those described

n a good second in living interest to the great apes. The facts thus far recorded, so I believe, present only a suggestion of the rich results that await the patient scientific investigator. In the year 1915 Dr. Robert M. Yerkes, of Harvard University, conducted at Montecito, southern California, in a comfortable primate laboratory, six months of co