[324] The song of the gibbon has already been alluded to in a quotation from Darwin. I may here add that the chimpanzee “Sally” not unfrequently executes an extraordinary performance of an analogous kind. The song, however, is by no means so “musical.” It is sung without any regard to notation, in a series of rapidly succeeding howls and screams—very loud, and accompanied by a drumming of the legs upon the ground. She will only thus “break forth into singing” after more or less sustained excitement by her keeper; but more often than not she refuses to be provoked by any amount of endeavour on his part.
[325] Compare quotations from the German philologists in support of the first hypothesis, pp. 361, 362.
[326] See pp. 288-290.
[327] Welt als Entwickelung der Geists, s. 255. This book, however, was not published until 1874—i.e. some years after the Descent of Man.
[328] This is likewise the view that was ably supported by Geiger on philological grounds, Ursprung der Sprache, 1869; and by Haeckel on grounds of general reasoning, History of Creation, English trans., 1876.
[329] “How many of the roots of language were formed in this way it is impossible to say; but when we consider that there is no modern word which we can derive from such cries as the sailor makes when he hauls a rope, or the groom when he cleans a horse, it does not seem likely that they can have been very numerous” (Sayce, Introduction, &c., i., p. 110).
[330] With regard to the erect attitude, we must remember that, although the chimpanzee and orang never adopt it, the only other kinds of anthropoid apes—namely, gorilla and gibbon—frequently do so when progressing on level surfaces. In the case of the gorilla, indeed, although the fore-limbs quit the ground and the locomotion thus becomes bipedal, the body is never fully straightened up; but in the case of the gibbon the erect attitude may be said to be complete when the animal is walking. (Huxley, Man’s Place in Nature, pp. 36-49). With regard to the selection and use of stones as tools, Commander Alfred Carpenter, R.N., thus describes the modus operandi of monkeys inhabiting islands off S. Burmah:—“The rocks at low-water are covered with oysters. The monkeys select stones of the best shape for their purpose from shingle of the beach, and carry them to the low-water mark, where the oysters live, which may be as far as eighty yards from the beach. This monkey has chosen the easiest way to open the rock-oyster, namely, to dislocate the valves by a blow on the base of the upper one, and to break the shell over the attaching muscle” (Nature, vol. xxxvi., p. 53. In connection with this subject see also Animal Intelligence, p. 481).
[331] See above, p. 220.
[332] See pp. 220-222.
[333] See pp. 179-181.