Chimpanzees and Orang-Utans attack and fight men just as they attack each other,—by biting the face and neck, and the hands, shoulders and arms. The fighting ape always reaches out, seizes the arm or wrist of the person to be harmed, drags it up to his mouth and bites savagely. As a home illustration of this method of attack, a chimpanzee named Chico in the Central Park Menagerie once bit a finger from the hand of his keeper. In April, 1921, Mr. Ellis Joseph, the animal dealer, was very severely bitten on his face and neck by his own chimpanzee, so much so in fact that eighteen stitches were required to sew up his lacerations.
One excellent thing about the manners of chimpanzees and orang- utans in captivity and on the stage is that they do not turn deadly dangerous all in a moment, as do bears and elephants, and occasionally deer. The ape who is falling from grace goes gradually, and gives warning signs that wise men recognize. They first become strong and boisterous, then they playfully resist and defy the keeper's restraining hand. Next in order they openly become angry at their keepers over trifles, and bristle up, stamp on the floor and savagely yell. It is then that the whip and the stick become not only useless but dangerous to the user, and must be discarded. It is then that new defensive tactics must be inaugurated, and the keeper must see to it that the big and dangerous ape gets no advantage. This means the exercise of good strategy, and very careful management in cage-cleaning. It calls for two cages for each dangerous ape.
There is only one thing in this world of which our three big chimps are thoroughly afraid, and that is an absurd little toy gun that cost about fifty cents, and looks it. No matter how bad Boma may be acting, if Keeper Palmer says in a sharp tone, "Where's that gun!" Boma hearkens and stops short, and if the "gun" is shown in front of his cage he flies in terror to the top of his second balcony, and cowers in a corner.
Why are those powerful and dangerous apes afraid of that absurd toy? I do not know. Perhaps the answer is—instinct; but if so, how was it acquired? The natives of the chimp country do not have many firearms, and the white man's guns have been seen and heard by not more than one out of every thousand of that chimp population.
Baboons Throw Stones. So far as we are aware, baboons are the only members of the Order Primates who ever deliberately throw missiles as means of offense. In 1922 there was in the New York Zoological Park a savage and aggressive Rhodesian baboon (Choiropithecus rhodesiae, Haagner) which throws stones at people whenever he can get hold of such missiles. We have seen him set up against Keeper Palmer and Curator Ditmars a really vigorous bombardment with stones and coal that had been supplied him. His throw was by means of a vigorous underhand pitch, and but for the intervening bars he would have done very good execution.
Keeper Rawlinson, of the Primate House, who was in the Boer War, states that on one occasion when his company was deploying along the steep side of a rock-covered kopje a troop of baboons above them rolled and threw so many stones down at the men that finally two machine guns were let loose on the savage beasts to disperse them.
THE CURTAIN
On one side of the heights above the River of Life stand the men of this little world,—the fully developed, the underdone, and the unbaked, in one struggling, seething mass. On the other side, and on a level but one step lower down, stands the vanguard of the long procession of "Lower" Animals, led by the chimpanzee, the orang and the gorilla. The natural bridge that almost spans the chasm lacks only the keystone of the arch.
Give the apes just one thing,—speech,—and the bridge is closed!
Take away from a child its sight, speech and hearing, and the whole world is a mystery, which only the hardest toil of science and education ever can reveal. Give back hearing and sight, without speech, and even then the world is only half available. Give a chimpanzee articulate expression and language, and no one could fix a limit to his progress.