Photo by Ottomar Anschütz] [Berlin.
CHACMA BABOON.
This photograph shows his attitude when about to make an attack.
The Speech of Monkeys.
Something should be said of the alleged "speech of monkeys" which Professor Garner believed himself to have discovered. He rightly excluded mere sounds showing joy, desire, or sorrow from the faculty of speech, but claimed to have detected special words, one meaning "food," another "drink," another "give me that," another meaning "monkey," or an identification of a second animal or monkey. He used a phonograph to keep permanent record of the sounds, and made an expedition to the West African forests in the hope that he might induce the large anthropoid apes to answer the sounds which are so often uttered by their kind in our menageries. The enterprise ended, as might have been expected, in failure. Nor was it in the least necessary to go and sit in a cage in an African forest in the hope of striking up an acquaintance with the native chimpanzees. The little Capuchin monkeys, whose voices and sounds he had ample opportunity of observing here, give sufficient material for trying experiments in the meaning of monkey sounds. The writer believes that it is highly probable that the cleverer monkeys have a great many notes or sounds which the others do understand, if only because they make the same under similar circumstances, otherwise they would not utter them. They are like the sounds which an intelligent but nearly dumb person might make. Also they have very sharp ears, and some of them can understand musical sounds, so far as to show a very marked attention to them. The following account of an experiment of this kind, when a violin was being played, is related in "Life at the Zoo": "The Capuchin monkeys, the species selected by Professor Garner for his experiments in monkey language, showed the strangest and most amusing excitement. These pretty little creatures have very expressive and intelligent faces, and the play and mobility of their faces and voices while listening to the music were extraordinarily rapid. The three in the first cage at once rushed up into their box, and then all peeped out, chattering and excited. One by one they came down, and listened to the music with intense curiosity, shrieking and making faces at a crescendo, shaking the wires angrily at a discord, and putting their heads almost upside-down in efforts at acute criticism at low and musical passages. Every change of note was marked by some alteration of expression in the faces of the excited little monkeys, and a series of discordant notes roused them to a passion of rage." At the same time a big baboon, chained up near, evidently disliked it. He walked off in the opposite direction to the farthest limits of his chain.
Photo by C. Reid] [Wishaw, N.B.
A YOUNG MALE CHACMA BABOON.
Note the protruding tusk in the upper jaw. A baboon sitting in this position of rest can instantly leap six or seven feet, and inflict a dangerous bite.