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.