WHAT MONKEYS TEACH THEMSELVES
It may be said that much of what has been told is the result of training and only shows that the monkey is easily taught. It does things, it is true, which no dog could be taught to do, but it has the advantage of having fingers and thumbs in place of the dog's paws, and also of having learned how to use these in its forest life in much the same way as we use them. A monkey, for instance, can use a stone as a hammer and some of them can throw stones with a very good aim. They can use other tools, as we shall show.
But there is one great difference between the monkeys and the other animals we have spoken of. Many of these can be taught to do things we would not expect of them, but they do not often teach themselves. Now the monkey does not wait to be taught but is constantly trying new tricks and working them out for itself. It is the most curious of animals, always wanting to know how things should be done, and thinking out for itself the right way to do them. We look with wonder on a dog when it does something that it has been taught. Should we not look with more wonder on the monkey when it does things which it has taught itself? I am sure you will enjoy reading some stories in this line.
Reproduced by Permission of the Philadelphia Museums
The Orang Outang in the Hands of His Keeper
Here is one of a tame orang outang told by the French scientist Cuvier. This animal, he says, when it wanted to open the door of a room, used to draw a chair from one end of the room to the other, and stand on it to lift the latch. Another writer speaks of a monkey which, when it wanted to lift the lid of a chest too heavy for it, used a stick as a lever to raise it. That monkeys use stones to break open oyster-shells has often been seen.
Mr. Romanes tells the following story. A large monkey was kept in a wide cage, in the centre of which was a kind of hut in which he slept. Near this hut was an artificial tree, with a branch leading away from the hut. If he wanted to get on this branch he could do so by climbing to the top edge of the hut door. But this door had a bad fashion of swinging shut whenever he pushed it open to climb up. He was seen to try this two or three times, and then to pick up a thick blanket which lay in his cage and throw it over the top of the door so that it could not swing to.
In all these cases the animal thought out for itself the best way of gaining its end. These things were done by chimpanzees and orangs, apes of high class, but Mr. Romanes, in his book on "Animal Intelligence," tells of quite as strange things done by a South American monkey of which such doings could not be expected. This he kept as a pet and watched for many days.
One thing his monkey never liked; that was to be laughed at; any one that did so would be apt to be repaid for his mirth. Mr. Romanes gave him a hammer to break his nuts with, and from the start he knew just how to use it.
"To-day," says Romanes, "a strange person (a dressmaker) came into the room where he is tied up and I gave him a walnut that she might see him break it with his hammer. The nut was a bad one and the woman laughed at his disappointed face. He then became very angry and threw at her everything he could lay hands on; first the nut, then the hammer, then a coffee pot which he seized out of the grate, and lastly all his own shawls. He throws things with great precision by holding them in both hands, and extending his long arms well back over his head before projecting the missile, standing erect the while."
Every day this little fellow did something new and unlooked for, something worked out in his own little brain. When a nut or anything he wanted lay too far away for him to reach it, he being fastened by a chain, he would try to draw it to him with a stick. If he failed in this, he would take his shawl by the two corners, throwing it back over his head and then flinging it forward with all his strength, but not letting go the corners. If it reached far enough to cover the nut, he would draw this in by pulling back the shawl. This is like the story of the elephant that used its trunk to make a wind beyond anything out of its reach, and thus blow it back.
His chain was a constant trouble to him and he tried in every way he could to get rid of it. When it was tied to a ring sunk into the floor, he spent a whole day passing the chain back and forward through the ring, and hammering it with all his strength. He went at it again the next day and this time got the chain so tangled up that he could not loosen it. When his master came to his aid he watched him very closely, sometimes taking hold of his fingers and pulling them to one side that he might see better. He would also look up into his master's face in an intelligent way as if to ask him how he did it. After the chain was loosened he worked at it again for hours, but took care not to twist it into the ring a second time.
Among the many things done by this comical little creature there were two which showed so much monkey wisdom as to be worth telling. His nuts were kept in a trunk which he looked upon as his own property. There were other things kept in the trunk, but if any person opened it to get anything out he grew very angry. It was not on account of the nuts, for he always had plenty of these, but for meddling with his property.
One day, when his chain was broken, he got to the trunk and began picking at the lock with his fingers. His master then gave him the key and for two full hours he tried to unlock the trunk. It was a hard lock to open, being a little out of order, but he found the right way to put the key in and turn it in the lock, every time trying the lid to see if it would come up. Of course, he had seen others use the key and knew how it should be used.
The most remarkable thing done by our smart little friend was the following: One day he got hold of a hearth-brush, one of the kind which has the handle screwed into the brush. In his usual fondness for experiment he at once began on the handle, and soon had it unscrewed and out of the brush. Then he began to try and find the way to screw it in again.
At first he put the wrong end of the handle into the hole and turned it round and round, always the right way for screwing. Then he tried the other end, still always turning only the right way. How he knew the way the screw should turn is a mystery. The work was a hard one, for he had to use both hands on the handle, and the brush, with its bristles, would not lie still. Next he tried holding it with his foot, and even then it was not easy to get the first turn of the screw to take hold. When this was done he turned the handle round and round until it was fully screwed in.
The strange thing was that, in all his efforts, he never tried to turn the handle the wrong way; he always screwed from right to left. The work done, he unscrewed it and screwed it in again, this time more easily. He kept on until he could do it without trouble and then threw it aside for some other amusement.
Here is a case where the animal tried for himself a thing he had never seen done, not for anything to be gained, but simply to find out how to do it. He knew somehow the right from the wrong way, and when he had finished he had no further use for the brush. He had learned that lesson, solved that riddle, and was ready to try something else.