In 1920, that same history was repeated, except that on this occasion our Veterinary Surgeon, Dr. W. Reid Blair, worked (on the fifth day) for seven hours without intermission to stupefy Suzette with chloroform, or other opiates, sufficiently to make it possible to remove the baby without a fight with the mother and its certain death. Owing to her savage temper all the work had to be done between iron bars, to keep from losing hands or arms, and the handicap on the human hand was too great. Even when Suzette had received chloroform for an hour and twenty minutes, and was regarded as half dead, at the first touch of a human finger upon her thigh she instantly aroused and sprang up, raging and ready for battle.
The whole effort failed. To rope Suzette and attempt to control her by force would have been sheer folly, or worse. In such a struggle the infant would have been torn to pieces.
The second one died as the first one did, and for an awful week we were unable to gain possession of the decomposing cadaver. Suzette knew that something was wrong, and she realized the awful odor, but that idea of defense of her offspring obscured all others. In maintaining her possession of that infant, nothing could surpass the cunning of that ape mother. Will we ever succeed in outwitting her, and in getting one of her babies alive into a baby incubator? Who can say?
X
THE TRUE MENTAL STATUS OF THE GORILLA
The true mental status of the gorilla was discovered in 1919 and 1920, at 15 Sloane Street, London, by Major Rupert Penny, of the Royal Air Service, and his young relative, Miss Alyse Cunningham. Prior to that time, through various combinations of retarding circumstances, no living gorilla had ever been placed and kept in an environment calculated to develop and display the real mental calibre of the gorilla mind. It seems that an exhibition cage, in a zoological park or garden thronged with visitors, actually tends to the suppression, or even the complete extinguishment, of true gorilla character. The atmosphere of the footlights and the stage in which the chimpanzee delights and thrives is to the gorilla repulsive and unbearable.
Judging by Major Penny's "John," the gorilla wishes to live in a high-class human family, in a modern house, and be treated like a human being! It is now definitely recognized by us, and also by our colleagues in the London Zoological Gardens, that gorillas can not live long and thrive on public exhibition, before great crowds of people, and that it is folly to insist upon trying to compel them to do so. The male individual that lived several years in the Breslau Zoological Garden and attained the age of seven years was a striking exception.
We have had two gorillas at our Park, one of which, a female named Dinah, arrived in good health, and lived with us eleven and one- half months. Her mind was dull and hopelessly unresponsive. She learned next to nothing, and she did nothing really interesting. Other captive gorillas I have known have been equally morose and unresponsive, and lived fewer months than Dinah.
It is because of such animals as Dinah that for fifty years the mental status of the gorilla species has been under a cloud. Until now it has been much misunderstood and unappreciated. Of the few gorillas that have been seen in England and America, I think that all save John have been so morose and unresponsive, and so undeveloped by companionship and training, that mentally they have been rated far below the chimpanzee and orang.
Our own Dinah was no exception to the rule. Personally she was a stupid little thing, even when in excellent health. Her most pronounced and exasperating stupidities were shown in her refusal to eat, or to taste, strange food, even when very hungry. Any ape that does not know enough to eat a fine, ripe banana, and will only mince away at the inner lining of the banana skin, is an unmitigated numskull, and hardly fit to live. Dinah was all that, and more. But, alas! We have seen a few stupid human children who obstinately refused even to taste certain new and unknown kinds of food, because they "know" they will not like them! So Dinah was not alone in her childish folly.