CHAPTER XVII.

The terrier in question followed a conveyance from the house in which I resided in the country, to a town ten miles distant.He only did this on one occasion, and about five months afterwards was takenby trainto the same town as a present to some friends there. Shortly afterwards I called upon these friends in a different conveyance from the one which the dog had previously followed; but the latter may have known that the two conveyances belonged to the samehouse. Anyhow, after I had put up the horses at an inn, I spent the morning with the terrier and his new masters, and in the afternoon was accompanied by them to the inn. I should have mentioned that the inn was the same as that at which the conveyance had been put up on the previous occasion, five months before. Now, the dog evidently remembered this, and, reasoning from analogy, inferred that I was about to return. This is shown by the fact that he stole away from our party—although at what precise moment he did so I cannot say, but it was certainlyafterwe had arrived at the inn, for subsequently we all remembered his having entered the coffee-room with us. Now, not only did he infer from a single precedent that I was going home, and make up his mind to go with me, but he also further reasoned thus:—'As my previous master lately sent me to town, it is probable that he does not want me to return to the country; therefore, if I am to seize this opportunity of resuming my poaching life, I must now steal a march upon the conveyance. But not only so, my former master may possibly pick me up and return with me to my proper owners; therefore I must take care only to intercept the conveyance at a point sufficiently far without the town to make sure that he will not think it worth his while to go back with me.'

Complicated as this train of reasoning is, it is the simplest one I can devise to account for the fact that slightly beyond thethirdmilestone the terrier was awaiting me, lying right in the middle of the road with his face towards the town. I should add that the second two miles of the road were quite straight, so that I could easily have seen the dog if he had been merely running a comparatively short distance in front of the horses. Why this animal should never have returned to his former home on his own account I cannot suggest, but I think it was merely due to an excessive caution which he also manifested in other things. However, be the explanation of this what it may, as a fact he never did venture to come back upon his own account, although there never was a subsequent occasion upon which any of his former friends went to the town but the terrier was seen to return with them, having always found some way of escape from his intended imprisonment.

The Rev. J. C. Atkinson gives an account ('Zoologist,'vol. vii., p. 2338) of his terrier, which, on starting a water-rat out of reeds into the running stream, would not plunge directly after it, knowing that the rat would beat him at swimming. But the moment the rat plunged, the dog ran four or five yards down the bank, and there waited till the water-rat, being carried down stream, appeared upon the surface, when he pounced upon it successfully.

Cases of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, and they appear to show a true faculty of reason or inferring.

Professor W. W. Bailey, writing from Brown University to 'Nature' (xxii., p. 607), says:—

A friend of mine, a naturalist, and a very conscientious man, whose word can be implicitly trusted, gives the following, to which he was an eye-witness. His grandfather, then a very old but hale and hearty man, had a splendid Newfoundland. There was a narrow and precipitous road leading from the fields to the house. It was regarded as a very dangerous place. One day when the old gentleman was doing some work about the farm his horse became alarmed, and started off with the waggon along this causeway. The chances were that he would dash himself and the empty waggon to pieces. At once the dog seemed to take in the situation, although until that time he had been impassive. He started after the horse at full speed, overtook him, caught the bridle, and by his strength arrested the frightened creature until help could reach him. My friend gives many other stories of this fine dog, and thinks he had a decided sense of humour. I will repeat that both of these tales come to me well authenticated, and I could, by seeking permission, give names and places.

Couch gives the following, which is worth quoting, as showing the intelligence of dogs in attacking unusual prey:—

On the first discovery of the prey (crabs) a terrier runs in to seize it, and is immediately and severely bitten in the nose. But a sedate Newfoundland dog of my acquaintance proceeds more soberly in his work. He lays his paw on it to arrest it in its escape; then tumbling it over he bares his teeth, and, seizing it with the mouth, throws the crab aloft. It falls upon the stones; the shell is cracked beyond redemption, and then the dainty dish is devoured at his leisure.[270]

I myself know a large dog in Germany which used to kill snakes by dexterously tossing them in the air a great number of times, too quickly to admit of the snake biting. When the snake was thus quite confused, the dog would tear it in pieces. This dog can never have been poisoned by the bite of a snake; but he seems to have had an instinctive idea that the snake might be more harmful in its bite than other animals; for while he was bold in fighting with dogs, and did not then object to receiving his fair share of laceration, he was extremely careful never to begin to tear a snake till he had thoroughly bewildered it by tossing it as described.

The reasoning displayed by dogs may not always be of a high order, but little incidents, from being of constant occurrence among all dogs, are the more important as showing the reasoning faculty to be general to these animals. I shall therefore give a few cases to show the kind of reasoning that is of constant occurrence.

Mr. Stone writes to me from Norbury Park concerning two of his dogs, one large and the other small. Both being in a room at the same time,

one of them, the larger, had a bone, and when he had left it the smaller dog went to take it, the larger one growled, and the other retired to a corner. Shortly afterwards the larger dog went out, but the other did not appear to notice this, and at any rate did not move. A few minutes later the large dog was heard to bark out of doors; the little dog then, without a moment's hesitation, went straight to the bone and took it. It thus appears quite evident that she reasoned—'That dog is barking out of doors, therefore he is not in this room, therefore it is safe for me to take the bone.' The action was so rapid as to be clearly a consequence of the other dog's barking.

Again, Mr. John Le Conte, writing from the University of California, tells me of a dog which used to hunt rabbits in an extensive pasture-ground where there was a hollow tree, which frequently served as a place of refuge for the rabbits when they were pressed:—

On one occasion a rabbit was 'started,' and all of the dogs, with the exception of 'Bonus,' dashed off in full pursuit. We were astonished to observe that the sedate 'Bonus,' foregoingthe intense excitement of the chase, deliberately trotted by a short cut to a hollow oak trunk, and crouching at its base calmly awaited the advent of the fleeing rabbit. And he was not disappointed (they frequently escaped without being reduced to this extremity), for the pursuing dogs pressed the rabbit so hard that, after making a long detour, it made for the place of refuge. As it was about entering the hollow trunk, the crouching 'Bonus' captured the astonished rodent.

Similarly, Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., writes me as follows:—

There is a shrubbery near the house, about 200 or 300 yards long, and running in the shape of a horseshoe. A small terrier used to start a rabbit nearly every morning, at the end of the shrubbery next the house, and hunt him through the whole length of it to the other end, where the rabbit escaped into an old drain. The dog then appears to have come to the conclusion that the chord of a circle is shorter than its arc, for he raised the rabbit again, and instead of following him through the shrubbery as usual, he took the short cut to the drain, and was ready and in waiting on the rabbit when he arrived, and caught him.

A somewhat similar instance is communicated to me by Mr. William Cairns, of Argyll House, N.B.:—

I was watching the operations of a little Skye terrier on a wheatstack which was in the course of being thrashed, when suddenly a very large rat bounced off, just from under Fan's nose. It darted into a pit of water about a dozen yards from the stack, and tried to escape. Fan, however, plunged after, and swam for some distance, but found she was being left behind. So she turned to the shore againand ran round to the other side of the pit, and was ready and caught it just on landing.I never saw anything more remarkable. If it was not reason, I do not know how it is possible that it could come much more closely to the exercise of that faculty.

I never saw anything more remarkable. If it was not reason, I do not know how it is possible that it could come much more closely to the exercise of that faculty.

Dr. Bannister, editor of the 'Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases,' writes me from Chicago, that having spent a winter in Alaska, he 'had a good opportunity to study animal intelligence in the Eskimo dogs,' and he reports it as 'a fact of common occurrence,' when the dogs are drawing sledges on the ice near the coast, thaton coming to sinuosities in the coast-line, they spontaneously leave the beaten track and strike out so as to 'cut across the windings by going straight from point to point' of land. This is frequently done even when the leading dog 'could not see the whole winding of the beaten track; he seemed to reason that the route must lead around the headlands, and that he could economise travel by cutting across.'

It will be remembered in connection with these dogs, that Mr. Darwin in the 'Descent of Man' (p. 75) quotes Dr. Hayes, who, in his work on 'The Open Polar Sea,' 'repeatedly remarks that his dogs, instead of continuing to draw the sledges in a compact body, diverged and separated when they came to thin ice, so that their weight might be more evenly [and widely] distributed. This was often the first warning which the travellers received that the ice was becoming thin and dangerous.' Mr. Darwin remarks, 'This instinct may possibly have arisen since the time, long ago, when dogs were first employed by the natives in drawing their sledges; or the Arctic wolves, the parent stock of the Esquimaux dog, may have acquired an instinct, impelling them not to attack their prey in a close pack when on thin ice.'

Mrs. Horn writes me:—

One morning, soon after his usual time for starting, I saw the dog looking anxiously about, evidently afraid that my brother had gone without him. He looked into the room where we had breakfasted, but my brother was not there. He went up two or three stairs, and listened attentively. Then, to my astonishment, he came down, and going to the hat-stand in the hall, stood on his hind legs and sniffed at the great-coats hanging there, undoubtedly trying to ascertain whether my brother's coat was there or not.

Another correspondent (Mr. Westlecombe) writes:—

My cat had kittens, of which two were preserved, the rest being drowned. The dog tolerated the two kittens, but did not care about them with any friendship. When the kittens were a few weeks old, I—finding that I could get but one of them off my hands—determined to kill the other, and, as the quickest mode of death, to shoot it by a pistol close behind its head. Thedog saw me do this in my garden, and in a few minutes afterwards she appeared with the other kitten dead in her mouth; she had killed it. If that was not reasoning I do not know what is.

Mr. W. F. Hooper writes me of a Newfoundland dog that was in the habit of accompanying the nursemaid and baby belonging to its mistress. On one occasion a keen wind began to blow, and the nursemaid drew her shawl over the child:—

The nursemaid had not taken many steps towards home before her progress was barred by the dog, who placed himself in the centre of the path and growled whenever she advanced. She was much alarmed, and tried to coax the dog to move, but Leo would not, and abated nothing of the hostile display. Half an hour passed, and the girl became nearly distracted. What could be the matter with the dog? Was she to be a prisoner all day? Would the animal fly at her throat? Was Leo suffering from hydrophobia? These and similar questions crossed the girl's mind. At length a suggestion of despair—it was nothing more—occurred to her. She thought it might win the dog round to good humour if she showed it the baby; so she removed the folds of her shawl and presented it at arm's length to the dog. The result was magical, and far in excess of all expectation, for not only did the dog cease to growl, but he began to gambol and caress, and removed himself from the path altogether, so that there was now a free course, and home was soon reached. The explanation of the whole affair is, when the nursemaid turned on her path thinking she had gone sufficiently far, the dog missed sight of the baby, and believed it was gone. Under this impression the dog converted himself into a sentinel, with the resolve that not one step should be taken towards home without the baby; and faithfully did the animal keep watch and ward until the demonstration was given that the child had not been left behind, but was still in the nurse's arms alive and well. I think this is an exhibition of intelligence worthy of being known to you.

I extract the following instance from Col. Hutchinson's 'Dog-breaking.' It is briefly alluded to in the 'Descent of Man.' The observer and narrator is Mr. Colquhoun:—

I may mention a proof of his sagacity. Having a couple of long shots across a pretty broad stream, I stopped a mallard with each barrel, but both were only wounded. I sent himacross for the birds. He first attempted to bring them both, but one always struggled out of his mouth: he then laid down one intending to bring the other; but whenever he attempted to cross to me, the bird left fluttered into the water; he immediately returned again, laid down the first on the shore and recovered the other. The first now fluttered away, but he instantly secured it, and, standing over them both, seemed to cogitate for a moment; then, although on any other occasion he never ruffles a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over the other, and then returned for the dead bird.

The following, communicated to me by Mr. Blood, is a closely analogous, and therefore confirmatory case. He was out shooting with a companion, and three wild ducks were simultaneously dropped into a lake—one falling dead and the other two winged. Mr. Blood sent in his spaniel to retrieve,

and of course when the wounded birds saw her coming they swam out, so that she first reached the dead duck. She swam up to it, paused for a moment, and passing it went after the nearest wounded bird. Having caught this, she again hesitated, and apparently after consideration she gave it a chop and let it go, quieted for the present. She then caught and brought to land the other wounded duck, and going back she again reached the dead bird; but looking at the other and seeing that it was again moving, she went out and brought it in, and last of all brought the dead bird. The dog was a first-rate retriever and never injured game, so that it was an entirely new thing for her to kill a bird.

Again, Mr. Arthur Nicols, in 'Nature,' vol. xix., page 496, says:—

Can we conceive any human being reasoning more correctly than a dog did in the following instance? Towards the evening of a long day's snipe-shooting on Dartmoor, the party was walking down the bank of the Dart, when my retriever flushed a widgeon which fell to my gun in the river, and of course instantly dived. I said no word to the dog. He did not plunge into the riverthen, but gallopeddownstream some fifty or sixty yards, and then entered and dashed from side to side—it was about twenty or thirty feet wide—working up stream, and making a great commotion in the water until he came to the place where we stood. Then he landed and shook himself, and carefully hunted the near bank a considerable distancedown, crossed to the opposite side, and diligently explored that bank. Two or three minutes elapsed, and the party was for moving on, when I called their attention to a sudden change in the dog's demeanour. His 'flag' was now up and going from side to side in that energetic manner which, as every sportsman knows, betokens a hot scent. I then knew that the bird was as safe as if it was already in my bag. Away through the heather went the waving tail, until twenty or thirty yards from the bank opposite to that on which we were standing there was a momentary scuffle; the bird just rose from the ground above the heather, the dog sprang into the air, caught it, came away at full gallop, dashed across the stream, and delivered it into my hands. Need I interpret all this for the experienced sportsman? The dog had learned from long experience in Australia and the narrow cañadas in the La Plata that a wounded duck goes down stream; if winged, his maimed wing sticks out and renders it impossible for him to go up, so he will invariably land and try to hide away from the bank. But if the dog enters at the place where the bird fell, the latter will go on with the stream for an indefinite distance, rising now and then for breath, and give infinite trouble. My dog had found out all this long since, and had proved the correctness of his knowledge times out of number, and by his actions hadtaught methe whole art and mystery of retrieving duck. His object, I say without a doubt, because I had numberless opportunities of observing it, was to fling the bird and force it to land by cutting it off lower down the stream. Then assuming, as his experience justified him, that the bird had landed, he hunted each bank in succession for the trail, which he knew must betray the fugitive.

As showing in a higher, and therefore rarer degree, the ratiocinative faculty in dogs, I may quote a brief extract from my British Association lecture:—

My friend Dr. Rae, the well-known traveller and naturalist, knew a dog in Orkney which used to accompany his master to church on alternate Sundays. To do so he had to swim a channel about a mile wide; and before taking to the water he used to run about a mile to the north when the tide was flowing, and a nearly equal distance to the south when the tide was ebbing, 'almost invariably calculating his distance so well that he landed at the nearest point to the church.' In his letter to me Dr. Rae continues: 'How the dog managed to calculate the strength of the spring and neap tides at theirvarious rates of speed, and always to swim at the proper angle, is most surprising.'

As a confirmatory case, I may also quote an extract from a letter sent me by Mr. Percival Fothergill. Writing of a retriever which he has, he says:—

I have seen her spring overboard from our gangway 16 feet from the water-line. The tides ran more than 5 knots, and she invariably came down to a little wharf abreast the ship, and gazed intently for small pieces of stick or straw, and having thus ascertained the drift of the tide (did as you mention of another dog), ran up tide and swam off. The sentry on the forecastle always kept a look-out for the dog, and threw over a line with a bowling knot, and she was hauled on board.But one day she was observed to wait an unusual time on the wharf; no wood or straw gave her the required information. After waiting some time, she lay down on the planks, and dropped one paw into the water, and found by the feel which way the tide ran, got up, and ran up stream as usual.

But one day she was observed to wait an unusual time on the wharf; no wood or straw gave her the required information. After waiting some time, she lay down on the planks, and dropped one paw into the water, and found by the feel which way the tide ran, got up, and ran up stream as usual.

Mr. George Cook writes me that he recently had a pointer, which one morning, when the grass was covered with frost, dragged a mat out of his kennel, from which he had got loose, to the lawn beneath the house windows, where he was found lying upon the mat, which thus served to protect him from the frost. The distance over which he had dragged the mat for this purpose was about 100 yards. Mr. Cook adds: 'I have since frequently seen him bring this mat out of his kennel and lay it in the sunshine, shifting it if a shadow came upon the place where he had laid it.'

The following is sent me by the Rev. F. J. Penky. He gives me the name of his friend the canon, but does not give me express permission to publish it. In quoting his account, therefore, I leave this name blank. He says:—

The following is an instance of sagacity—indeed, amounting to reason—in a dog, a French poodle that belonged to Colonel Pearson (not the lately beleaguered colonel at Ekowe, but a Colonel Pearson living some years ago at Lichfield). The circumstance happened to a friend of mine, Canon ——, rector of ——. I have the story from his own lips, but I have no permission for his name to be used in any publication, shouldthe story be thought worthy of it. My friend the canon, I may say, has no leanings. Being a guest at luncheon with the dog's master, my friend fed the dog with pieces of beef. After luncheon the beef was taken into the larder. The dog did not think he had his fair share. What did he do? Now he had been taught to stand on his hind legs, put his paw on a lady's wrist, and hand her into the dining-room. He adopted the same tactics with my friend the canon, stood on his hind legs, put his paw on his arm, and made for the door. To see what would follow, Canon —— suffered himself to be led; but the sagacious dog, instead of steering for the dining-room, led him in the direction of the larder, along a passage, down steps, &c., and did not halt till he brought him to the larder, and close to the shelf where the beef had been put. The dog had a small bit given him for his sagacity, and Canon —— returned to the drawing-room. But the dog was still not satisfied. He tried the same trick again, but this time fruitlessly. The canon was not going again with him to the larder. What was Mori to do? And here comes the instance of reason in the poodle. Finding he could not prevail on the visitor to make a second excursion to the larder, he went out into the hall, took in his teeth Canon ----'s hat from off the hall table, and carried it under the shelf in the larder, where the coveted beef lay out of his reach. There he was found with the hat, waiting for the owner of the hat, and expecting another savoury bit when he should come for his hat.

Many anecdotes might be adduced of the cleverness which some dogs show in finding their way by train; but I shall give only three, and I select these, not only because they all mutually corroborate one another, but likewise because they all display such high intelligence on the part of the dogs.

Mr. Horsfall, in 'Nature,' vol. xx., p. 505, says:—

Last year we spent our holidays at Llan Bedr, Merionethshire. Our host has a house in the above village, and another at Harlech, a town three miles distant. His favourite dog, Nero, is of Norwegian birth, and a highly intelligent animal. He is at liberty to pass his time at either of the houses owned by his master, and he occasionally walks from one to the other. More frequently, however, he goes to the railway station at Llan Bedr, gets into the train, and jumps out at Harlech. Being most probably unable to get out of the carriage, he was on one occasion taken to Salsernau, the station beyond Harlech,when he left the carriage and waited on the platform for the return train to Harlech. If Nero did not make use of 'abstract reasoning' we may as well give up the use of the term.

Miss M. C. Young writes to me:—

You may perhaps think the following worthy of notice, as illustrating the comparative failure ofinstinctin an animal which has begun toreason. A friend of mine has a mongrel fox-terrier of remarkable intelligence, though undeveloped by any training. This dog has always shown a great fondness for accompanying any of the family on a railway journey, often having to be taken out of the train by force. One morning in the summer of 1877 the groom came, in great distress, to say that Spot had followed him to the station, and jumped into the train after a visitor's maid who was going to see her friends, and he (the groom) felt sure the dog would be stolen. The railway is a short single line, with three trains down and up each day, and my friend is well known to all the officials, so she sent to meet the next train, when the guard said the dog (apparently finding nofriendin the train) had jumped out at a little roadside station about five miles distant. Most dogs would have found their way home easily, though the place itself was strange, but Spot did not appear till late in the evening, after ten hours' absence, anddead tired. On inquiry we found that the guard had seen nothing of her at 9A.M., at 12A.M., at 1P.M., nor at 4P.M.; but when he reached the little station on his return at 5.30, 'she was walking up and down the platform like a Christian,' jumped into his box, and jumped out again of her own accord at the right station for her home. She had evidently spent the interval in trying to find her way home on foot, and not succeeding, had resolved on returning the way she came.

Lastly, for the following very remarkable case I am indebted to my friend Mrs. A. S. H. Richardson:—

The Rev. Mr. Townsend, incumbent of Lucan, was formerly an engineer on the Dundalk line of railway. He had a very intelligent Scotch retriever dog, which used to have a habit of jumping into any carriage in which Mr. Townsend travelled; but this had been discontinued for a year when the following incident happened. Mr. Townsend and the dog were on the platform at Dundalk station; Mr. Townsend went to get a ticket for a lady, and during his absence the dog jumped into a carriage, and when the train started, was carried down toClones. There he found himself alone when he jumped out; he went into the station-master's office and looked about, then into the ticket-collector's and searched there, and then ran off to the town of Clones, a mile distant. There he searched the resident engineer's office, and not finding his master, returned to the station and went to theupplatform. When the up train arrived, he jumped in, but was driven out by the guard. A ballast train then drew up, going on to a branch line which was being constructed to Caran, but which was not finished yet. The dog travelled on the engine as far as the line went, and then ran the remaining five miles to Caran, where Mr. Townsend's sister lived. He visited her house, and not finding his master, ran back to the station, and took a return train to Clones, where he slept, and was fed by the station-master. At four in the morning he took a goods train down to Dundalk, where he found Mr. Townsend.

drawn map

It would be easy to continue multiplying anecdotes of canine intelligence; but I think a sufficient number of instances have now been given for the only purpose that I have in view—namely, that of exhibiting in a connected manner the various psychological faculties which are presented by dogs, and the level of development to which they severally attain. I may again remark that I have selected these instances for publication from among many others that I could have given, only because they conform to one or other of the general principles to which I everywhere adhere in the quoting of facts. That is to say, these facts are either matters of ordinary observation, and so intrinsically credible; or they stand upon the authority of observers well known to me as competent; or they are of a kind which do not admit of mal-observation; or, lastly, they are well corroborated by similar accounts received from independent observers. I think, therefore, that this sketch of the psychology of the dog is as accurate as the nature of the materials admits of my drawing it. If it is fairly open to criticism on any one side, I believe it is from the side ofthe dog-lovers, who may perhaps with justice complain that I have ignored a number of published facts, standing on more or less good authority, and appearing more wonderful than any of the facts that I have rendered. To this criticism I have only to answer that it is better to err on the safe side, and that if the facts which I have rendered are sufficient to prove the existence of all the psychological faculties which the dog can fairly be said to possess, it is of less moment that partly doubtful cases should be suppressed, where the only object of introducing them would be to show that some particular faculties were in some particular instances more highly developed than was the case in the instances here recorded.

MONKEYS, APES AND BABOONS.

Wenow come to the last group of animals which we shall have occasion to consider, and these, from an evolutionary point of view, are the most interesting. Unfortunately, however, the intelligence of apes, monkeys, and baboons has not presented material for nearly so many observations as that of other intelligent mammals. Useless for all purposes of labour or art, mischievous as domestic pets, and in all cases troublesome to keep, these animals have never enjoyed the improving influences of hereditary domestication, while for the same reasons observation of the intelligence of captured individuals has been comparatively scant. Still more unfortunately, these remarks apply most of all to the most man-like of the group, and the nearest existing prototypes of the human race: our knowledge of the psychology of the anthropoid apes is less than our knowledge of the psychology of any other animal. But notwithstanding the scarcity of the material which I have to present, I think there is enough to show that the mental life of theSimiadæis of a distinctly different type from any that we have hitherto considered, and that in their psychology, as in their anatomy, these animals approach most nearly toHomo sapiens.

Affection and sympathy are strongly marked—the latter indeed more so than in any other animal, not even excepting the dog. A few instances from many that might be quoted will be sufficient to show this.

Mr. Darwin writes:—

Rengger observed an American monkey (a Cebus) carefully driving away the flies which plagued her infant; and Duvancel saw a Hylobates washing the faces of her young ones in a stream. So intense is the grief of female monkeys for the loss of their young, that it invariably caused the death of certain kinds kept under confinement by Brehm in North Africa. Orphan monkeys were always adopted and carefully guarded by the other monkeys, both male and female.[271]

Again, Jobson says that whenever his party shot an orang-outang from their boat, the body was carried off by others before the men could reach the shore.

So, again, James Forbes, F.R.S., in his 'Oriental Memoirs,' narrates the following remarkable instance of the display of solicitude and care for a dead companion exhibited by a monkey:—

One of a shooting-party under a banian tree killed a female monkey, and carried it to his tent, which was soon surrounded by forty or fifty of the tribe, who made a great noise and seemed disposed to attack their aggressor. They retreated when he presented his fowling-piece, the dreadful effect of which they had witnessed and appeared perfectly to understand. The head of the troop, however, stood his ground, chattering furiously; the sportsman, who perhaps felt some little degree of compunction for having killed one of the family, did not like to fire at the creature, and nothing short of firing would suffice to drive him off. At length he came to the door of the tent, and, finding threats of no avail, began a lamentable moaning, and by the most expressive gesture seemed to beg for the dead body. It was given him; he took it sorrowfully in his arms and bore it away to his expecting companions. They who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene resolved never again to fire at one of the monkey race.

Of course it is not to be supposed from this instance that all, or even most monkeys display any care for their dead. A writer in 'Nature' (vol. ix., p. 243), for instance, says expressly that such is not the case with Gibbons (Hylobates agilis), which he has observed to be highly sympathetic to injured companions, but 'take no notice whatever' of dead ones.

Regarding their sympathy for injured companions this writer says:—

I keep in my garden a number of Gibbon apes (Hylobates agilis); they live quite free from all restraint in the trees, merely coming when called to be fed. One of them, a young male, on one occasion fell from a tree and dislocated his wrist; it received the greatest attention from the others, especially from an old female, who, however, was no relation; she used before eating her own plantains to take up the first that were offered to her every day, and give them to the cripple, who was living in the eaves of a wooden house; and I have frequently noticed that a cry of fright, pain, or distress from one would bring all the others at once to the complainer, and they would then condole with him and fold him in their arms.

Captain Hugh Crow, in his 'Narrative of my Life,' relates an interesting tale of the conduct of some monkeys on board his ship. He says:—

We had several monkeys on board; they were of different species and sizes, and amongst them was a beautiful little creature, the body of which was about ten inches or a foot in length, and about the circumference of a common drinking glass. This interesting little animal, which, when I received it from the Governor of the Island of St. Thomas, diverted me by its innocent gambols, became afflicted by the malady which unfortunately prevailed in the ship. It had always been a favourite with the other monkeys, who seemed to regard it as the last born and the pet of the family; and they granted it many indulgences which they seldom conceded to one another. It was very tractable and gentle in its temper, and never took advantage of the partiality shown to it. From the moment it was taken ill their attention and care of it redoubled; and it was truly affecting and interesting to see with what anxiety and tenderness they tended and nursed the little creature. A struggle often ensued among them for priority in those offices of affection; and some would steal one thing and some another, which they would carry to it untasted, however tempting it might be to their own palates. Then they would take it up gently in their fore-paws, hug it to their breasts, and cry over it as a fond mother would over her suffering child. The little creature seemed sensible of their assiduities, but it was wofully overpowered by sickness. It would sometimes come to me and look me pitifully in the face, and moan and cry like aninfant, as if it besought me to give it relief; and we did everything we could think of to restore it to health: but, in spite of the united attention of its kindred tribes and ourselves, the interesting little creature did not survive long.

Here is a case which I myself witnessed at the Zoological Gardens, and published in the 'Quarterly Journal of Science,' from which I now quote:—

A year or two ago there was an Arabian baboon and an Anubis baboon confined in one cage, adjoining that which contained a dog-headed baboon. The Anubis baboon passed its hand through the wires of the partition, in order to purloin a nut which the large dog-headed baboon had left within reach—expressly, I believe, that it might act as a bait. The Anubis baboon very well knew the danger he ran, for he waited until his bulky neighbour had turned his back upon the nut with the appearance of having forgotten all about it. The dog-headed baboon, however, was all the time slyly looking round with the corner of his eye, and no sooner was the arm of his victim well within his cage than he sprang with astonishing rapidity and caught the retreating hand in his mouth. The cries of the Anubis baboon quickly brought the keeper to the rescue, when, by dint of a good deal of physical persuasion, the dog-headed baboon was induced to leave go his hold. The Anubis baboon then retired to the middle of his cage, moaning piteously, and holding the injured hand against his chest while he rubbed it with the other one. The Arabian baboon now approached him from the top part of the cage, and, while making a soothing sound very expressive of sympathy, folded the sufferer in its arms—exactly as a mother would her child under similar circumstances. It must be stated, also, that this expression of sympathy had a decidedly quieting effect upon the sufferer, his moans becoming less piteous so soon as he was enfolded in the arms of his comforter; and the manner in which he laid his cheek upon the bosom of his friend was as expressive as anything could be of sympathy appreciated. This really affecting spectacle lasted a considerable time, and while watching it I felt that, even had it stood alone, it would in itself have been sufficient to prove the essential identity of some of the noblest among human emotions with those of the lower animals.

As a beautiful instance of the display of sympathy, I may narrate an occurrence which was witnessed by my friend Sir James Malcolm—a gentleman on the accuracyof whose observation I can rely. He was on board a steamer where there were two common East India monkeys, one of which was older and larger than the other, though they were not mother and child. The smaller monkey one day fell overboard amidships. The larger one became frantically excited, and running over the bulwarks down to a part of the ship which is called 'the bend,' it held on to the side of the vessel with one hand, while with the other it extended to her drowning companion a cord with which she had been tied up, and one end of which was fastened round her waist. The incident astonished everyone on board, but unfortunately for the romance of the story the little monkey was not near enough to grasp the floating end of the cord. The animal, however, was eventually saved by a sailor throwing out a longer rope to the little swimmer, who had sense enough to grasp it, and so to be hauled on board.

The following account of the behaviour of a wounded monkey seems to suggest the presence of a class of emotions similar to those which we know as feelings of reproach. The observer was Capt. Johnson:—

I was one of a party of Jeekary in the Bahar district; our tents were pitched in a large mango garden, and our horses were picquetted in the same garden a little distance off. When we were at dinner a Syer came to us, complaining that some of the horses had broken loose in consequence of being frightened by monkeys (i.e. Macacus Orhesus) on the trees. As soon as dinner was over I went out with my gun to drive them off, and I fired with small shot at one of them, which instantly ran down to the lowest branch of the tree, as if he were going to fly at me, stopped suddenly, and coolly put his paw to the part wounded, covered with blood, and held it out for me to see. I was so much hurt at the time that it has left an impression never to be effaced, and I have never since fired a gun at any of the tribe. Almost immediately on my return to the party, before I had fully described what had passed, a Syer came to inform us that the monkey was dead. We ordered the Syer to bring it to us, but by the time he returned the other monkeys had carried the dead one off, and none of them could anywhere be seen.

This case is strikingly corroborated by the followingallusion to Sir W. Hoste's Memoirs, given by Jesse as follows:—

One of his officers, coming home after a long day's shooting, saw a female monkey running along the rocks, with her young one in her arms. He immediately fired, and the animal fell. On his coming up, she grasped her little one close to her breast, and with her other hand pointed to the wound which the ball had made, and which had entered above her breast. Dipping her finger in the blood, and then holding it up, she seemed to reproach him with being the cause of her death, and consequently that of the young one, to which she frequently pointed. 'I never,' says Sir William, 'felt so much as when I heard the story, and I determined never to shoot one of these animals as long as I lived.'[272]

Mr. Darwin says that most persons who have observed monkeys have seen them show a sense of the ludicrous. Here is an instance which I have myself observed, and now quote from my article in the 'Quarterly Journal of Science:'—

Several years ago I used to watch carefully the young orang-outang in the Zoological Gardens, and I am quite sure that she manifested a sense of the ludicrous. One example will suffice. Her feeding tin was of a somewhat peculiar shape, and when it was empty she used sometimes to invert it upon her head. The tin then presented a comical resemblance to a bonnet, and as its wearer would generally favour the spectators with a broad grin at the time of putting it on, she never failed to raise a laugh from them. Her success in this respect was evidently attended with no small gratification on her part.

But perhaps the strongest evidence of monkeys having an appreciation of the ludicrous is the same as that which we have seen to be presented in the case of certain dogs—namely, in the animals disliking ridicule. Abundant evidence on this head in the case of monkeys will be given further on.

That monkeys enjoy play no one can question who spends an hour or two in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens. According to Savage, chimpanzees congregate together for the sole purpose of play, whenthey beat or drum with pieces of stick on sonorous pieces of wood.[273]

Curiosity is more strongly pronounced in monkeys than in any other animals. We all know the interesting illustration on this head furnished by the experiment of Mr. Darwin, who, in order to test the statement of Brehm that monkeys have an instinctive dread of snakes, and yet cannot 'desist from occasionally satiating their curiosity in a most human fashion, by lifting up the lid of the box in which the snakes were kept,' took a stuffed snake to the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens. Mr. Darwin says:—

The excitement thus caused was one of the most curious spectacles I ever beheld. . . . . I then placed a live snake in a paper bag, with the mouth loosely closed, in one of the larger compartments. One of the monkeys immediately approached, cautiously opened the bag, peeped in, and instantly dashed away. Then I witnessed what Brehm has described, for monkey after monkey, with head raised high and turned on one side, could not resist taking a momentary peep into the upright bag, at the dreadful object lying quietly at the bottom.[274]

Allied, perhaps, to curiosity, and so connected with the emotions, is what Mr. Darwin calls 'the principle of imitation.' It is proverbial that monkeys carry this principle to ludicrous lengths, and they are the only animals which imitate for the mere sake of imitating, as has been observed by Desor, though an exception ought to be made in favour of talking birds. The psychology of imitation is difficult of analysis, but it is remarkable as well as suggestive that it should be confined in its manifestations to monkeys and certain birds among animals, and to the lower mental levels among men. As Mr. Darwin says:—

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