In the end of her life this animal showed what seemed a human feeling and sense of injustice. The first mate beat her cruelly for something in which she was not in fault and the ill-treatment seemed to break her tender heart. She bore the blows with patience, merely holding up her hands as if praying for mercy, but from that moment she refused to take any food and on the fifth day she died from grief and hunger. The sailors would have liked, if they dared, to treat the mate in the same way he had treated the monkey.
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.