Page 142.
Many years ago, in the Zoölogical Gardens, I placed a looking-glass on the floor before two young orangs, who, as far as it was known, had never before seen one. At first they gazed at their own images with the most steady surprise, and often changed their point of view. They then approached close and protruded their lips toward the image, as if to kiss it, in exactly the same manner as they had previously done toward each other, when first placed, a few days before, in the same room. They next made all sorts of grimaces, and put themselves in various attitudes before the mirror; they pressed and rubbed the surface; they placed their hands at different distances behind it; looked behind it; and finally seemed almost frightened, started a little, became cross, and refused to look any longer.
When we try to perform some little action which is difficult and requires precision, for instance, to thread a needle, we generally close our lips firmly, for the sake, I presume, of not disturbing our movements by breathing; and I noticed the same action in a young orang. The poor little creature was sick, and was amusing itself by trying to kill the flies on the window-panes with its knuckles; this was difficult as the flies buzzed about, and at each attempt the lips were firmly compressed, and at the same time slightly protruded.
WEEPING OF MAN AND BRUTE.
Expression of the Emotion,
page 153.
Infants while young do not shed tears or weep, as is known to nurses and medical men. This circumstance is not exclusively due to the lachrymal glands being as yet incapable of secreting tears. I first noticed this fact from having accidentally brushed with the cuff of my coat the open eye of one of my infants, when seventy-seven days old, causing this eye to water freely; and, though the child screamed violently, the other eye remained dry, or was only slightly suffused with tears. A similar slight effusion occurred ten days previously in both eyes during a screaming-fit. The tears did not run over the eyelids and roll down the cheeks of this child, while screaming badly, when one hundred and twenty-two days old. This first happened seventeen days later, at the age of one hundred and thirty-nine days. A few other children have been observed for me, and the period of free weeping appears to be very variable. In one case, the eyes became slightly suffused at the age of only twenty days; in another, at sixty-two days. With two other children, the tears did not run down the face at the ages of eighty-four and one hundred and ten days; but in a third child they did run down at the age of one hundred and four days. In one instance, as I was positively assured, tears ran down at the unusually early age of forty-two days. It would appear as if the lachrymal glands required some practice in the individual before they are easily excited into action, in somewhat the same manner as various inherited consensual movements and tastes require some exercise before they are fixed and perfected. This is all the more likely with a habit like weeping, which must have been acquired since the period when man branched off from the common progenitor of the genus Homo and of the non-weeping anthropomorphous apes.
* * * * *
Page 135.
A woman, who sold a monkey to the Zoölogical Society, believed to have come from Borneo (Macacus maurus or M. inornatus of Gray), said that it often cried; and Mr. Bartlett, as well as the keeper Mr. Sutton, have repeatedly seen it, when grieved, or even when much pitied, weeping so copiously that the tears rolled down its cheeks.
* * * * *