Among different specimens of monkeys there seems to be a wide range of tastes. In this respect they vary much the same as human beings do. The same is true of their mental powers in general. With some monkeys the choice of color is much more definite and of dimension much more certain than in others, and most of them appear to assign to different numbers a difference of value.
Some monkeys are talkative and others taciturn. Some of them are vicious and some stolid, while others are as playful as kittens and as cheerful as sunshine. I regard the Cebus as the most intelligent of monkeys. In fact I have called him “The Caucasian of monkeys.” The new world monkeys seem to be more intelligent and more loquacious than the old world stock, but this remark does not include the anthropoid apes.
As a test of the musical taste of monkeys, I took three little bells and suspended them by a like number of strings. The bells were all alike except that from two of them the clappers had been removed. Dropping the bells through the meshes of the cage at a distance of ten or twelve inches apart, the monkey was allowed to play with them. He soon discovered the one containing the clapper. He played with it and became quite absorbed with it. He was then attracted to another part of the cage, during which time the position of the bells was changed. On his return he found his favorite bell without a clapper. He then turned to another, and then another, until he found the one with the clapper. This indicated that the sound emitted by the bell was at least a part of its attraction.
During the time that I used the phonograph in studying the monkeys, I repeated many musical records to them and found that some evinced fondness for the music, others were indifferent to it, and a few showed aversion to it. It appeared that the monkeys that were most attracted by musical sounds enjoy the repetition of a single note rather than the melody. It is possible that music, as we understand it, is too high an order of sense culture for them. The single note of a certain pitch seems to attract and afford pleasure to some of them, but they do not seem to appreciate rhythm or melody.
As monkeys discern the larger of two pieces of food, they may be said to have the perceptive faculty which enables them to appreciate dimension. As they are able to discern singular from plural, and two from three or more, they have, in that degree, the faculty of enumeration. As they are able to distinguish and select colors, they possess the first rudiment of art as dealing with color. As they are attracted or repelled by musical sounds, they may be said to possess the first rudiment of music. It must not be understood, however, that any claim is made that monkeys possess a high degree of mental culture; but it will be admitted that they possess the germs of mathematics as dealing with form, dimension, and number; of art, as dealing with form and color; of music, as dealing with tone and time. It is not probable that they have any names for any of these sensations, nor that they have any abstract ideas that are not drawn directly from experience. But as the concrete must precede the abstract in the development of reason, it is more than probable that these creatures now occupy a mental horizon such as man has once passed through in the course of his evolution. It does not require a great effort of the mind to appreciate the possibility that these feeble faculties, in constant use and under changed conditions, may develop into a higher degree of strength and usefulness. In fact we find in these creatures the embryo of every faculty of the human being, including those of reason and speech, through the exercise of which are developed the higher moral and social traits of man. They appear to have at least the raw material from which are made the highest attributes of the human mind, and I shall not contest with them the right of exclusive possession.
CHAPTER V
Pedro’s Speech Recorded—Delivered to Puck through the Phonograph—Little Darwin Learns a New Word
In the Washington collection there was once a Capuchin monkey by the name of Pedro. When I first visited this bright little fellow he occupied a cage in common with several other monkeys of different kinds. All of them seemed to impose upon little Pedro, and a mischievous young spider-monkey found special delight in catching him by the tail and dragging him about the floor of the cage. I interfered on behalf of Pedro and drove the spider-monkey away. Pedro appreciated this and began to look upon me as a benefactor. When he saw me he would scream to attract my attention and then beg for me to come to him. I induced the keeper to place him by himself in a small cage. This seemed to please him very much. When I went to record his sounds on the phonograph, I held him on my arm. He took the tube into his tiny, black hands, held it close up to his mouth and talked into it just like a good little boy who knew what to do and how to do it. He sometimes laughed, and he frequently chattered to me as long as he could see me. He would sit on my hand and kiss my cheeks, put his mouth up to my ear and chatter just as though he knew what my ears were for. He was quite fond of the head-keeper and also of the director; but he entertained a great dislike for one of the assistant keepers. He often told me some very bad things about that man, though I could not understand what he said. I shall long remember how this dear little monkey used to cuddle under my chin and try to make me understand some sad story which seemed to be the burden of his life. He readily understood the sounds of his own speech when repeated to him, and I made some of the best records of his voice that I ever succeeded in making of any monkey. Some of them I preserved for a long time. They displayed a wide range of sounds, and I studied them with special care and pleasure, because I knew that they were addressed to me. Being aware that the little creature was uttering these sounds to me with the hope that I would understand them, I was more anxious to learn just what he really meant than if it had contained only something addressed to another. This little simian was born in the Amazon Valley, in Brazil, and was named for the late emperor, Dom Pedro.
At one time I borrowed from a dealer a little Capuchin called Puck, and had him sent to my apartments, where I had a phonograph. I placed the cage in front of the machine, upon which had been adjusted the record of my little friend Pedro. I concealed myself in an adjoining room, where, through a small hole in the door, I could watch the conduct of Puck. A string was attached to the lever of the machine, drawn taut, and passed through another hole in the door. By this means the machine could be started without attracting the attention of the monkey through his seeing anything move. When everything in the room was quiet the machine was set in motion, and Puck was treated to a phonographic recital by Pedro. This speech was distinctly delivered through the horn to the monkey. From his actions it was evident that he recognized it as the voice of one of his tribe. He looked with surprise at the horn, made a sound or two, glanced around the room, and again uttered two or three sounds. Apparently somewhat afraid, he retired from the horn. Again the horn delivered some sounds of pure Capuchin speech. Puck seemed to regard them as sounds of some importance. He advanced cautiously and made a feeble response; but a quick, sharp sound from the horn startled him; and failing to find anything indicating a monkey, except the sound of the voice, he looked with evident suspicion at the horn, and scarcely ventured to answer any sound it made.
When the contents of the record had been delivered to him I entered the room. This relieved his fear of the horn. A little later the apparatus was again adjusted, and a small mirror was hung just above the mouth of the horn. Again retiring from the room, I left him to examine his new surroundings. He soon discovered the monkey in the glass, and began to caress it and chatter to it. Again the phonograph was started by means of the string, and when the horn began to deliver its simian oration, it greatly disconcerted and perplexed Puck. He looked at the image in the glass and then into the horn. He retired with a feeble grunt and an inquisitive grin, showing his little white teeth, and acting as though in doubt whether to regard the affair as a joke, or to treat it as a grim and scientific fact. His voice and actions were like those of a child, declaring in words that he was not afraid, and at the same time betraying fear in every act. Puck did not cry, but his intense fear made the grin on his face rather ghastly. Again he approached the mirror and listened to the sounds which came from the horn. His conduct betrayed the conflict in his little soul. It was evident that he did not believe the monkey which he saw in the glass was making the sounds which came from the horn. He repeatedly put his mouth to the glass and caressed the image, but tried at the same time to avoid the monkey which he heard in the horn. His conduct in this instance was a source of surprise, as the sounds contained in the record were all uttered in a mood of anxious, earnest entreaty, which contained no sound of anger, warning, or alarm, but, on the contrary, appeared to be a kind of love-speech. I had not learned the exact meaning of any one of the sounds contained in this cylinder, but in a collective and general way had ascribed such meaning to them. From Puck’s conduct it was to be inferred that this was some kind of complaint against those monkeys occupying the other cage. They had made life a burden to little Pedro. It was evident that Puck interpreted the actions of the monkey seen in the glass to mean one thing, and the sounds that came from the horn to mean quite another.