Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/258

244 of mankind, but holds himself better and higher than other animals, especially than other monkeys. Paying in every instance high regard to men, he likes children if they do not tease and molest him. Sportive and humorous, he indulges in joking with men and animals. He is not only inquisitive but eager to acquire knowledge, examines carefully things strange to him, and falls into ecstasy when he has found out their purpose and learned to use them in the right way. While able to understand men and things, he is, nevertheless, modest and kindly, seldom willful, and never stubborn, although he claims what is in right due to him. Of variable temper, he is now good-humored and jolly, now sad and morose, and gives vent to his feelings as men do, but sometimes in a more passionate way.

I was once the owner of a highly educated chimpanzee. He knew all the friends of the house, all our acquaintances, and distinguished them readily from strangers. Every one treating him kindly he looked upon as a personal friend. He never felt more comfortable than when he was admitted to the family circle and allowed to move freely around, and open and shut doors, while his joy was boundless when he was assigned a place at the common table, and the guests admired his natural wit and practical jokes. He expressed his satisfaction and thanks to them by drumming furiously on the table. In his numerous moments of leisure his favorite occupation consisted in investigating carefully every object in his reach: he lowered the door of the stove for the purpose of watching the fire, opened drawers, rummaged boxes and trunks and played with their contents, provided the latter did not look suspicious to him. How easily suspicion was aroused in his mind might be illustrated by the fact that, as long as he lived, he shrank with terror from every common rubber-ball. Obedience to my orders and attachment to my person, and to everybody caring for him, were among his cardinal virtues, and he bored me with his persistent wishes to accompany me. He knew perfectly his time for retiring, and was happy when some one of us carried him to the bedroom like a baby. As soon as the light was put out he would jump into the bed and cover himself, because he was afraid of the darkness. His favorite meal was supper with tea, which he was very fond of, provided it was largely sweetened and mixed with rum. He sipped it from the cup, and ate the dipped bread-slices with a spoon, having been taught not to use the fingers in eating; he poured his wine from the bottle and drank it from the glass. A man could hardly behave himself more gentlemanlike at table than did that monkey.

He was especially engaging in his association with my children, always gentle, obliging, and tender, and they liked him as a good fellow and pretty playmate. When he was first introduced to my little girl, who was then six months old, he seemed perplexed, and observed her with astonishment, as if speculating whether that little bit of a creature was really a human being. At last his mind was