Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/33

Rh particular things that were served at the table, and, when given other than what it desired, became irritated, threw down what was offered it, stamped its feet and uttered a peculiar cry, and acted, Du Chaillu says, just as a spoiled child would have done. A friend of the author, who had a little monkey, and was studying its instincts, said of it: "It is a badly brought-up child. It has all such a child's faults, and is intelligent enough to know when it is disobeying, and to hide itself when it intends to disobey." Dr. Abel's orang-outang showed its anger, when refused what it wanted, by rolling on the ground like a mad child and screaming, and would then go off and hide. The apes which Adanson chased in the forests of Senegal knit their eyebrows, gritted their teeth, and screamed; and the monkeys in the Jardin des Plantes and the Jardin d'Acclimatation, when irritated by the refusal of anything that has been tantalizingly shown them, throw themselves upon the gratings, make their ugliest faces, show their teeth, and scream and mutter.

"Greedy as a monkey" is a vulgar expression. Houzeau says that those persons who assert that monkeys will not have to do again with intoxicating drinks after having once been made their victims were more desirous of teaching a moral lesson than of telling the exact truth. Most tamed monkeys are ready enough to drink wine and brandy, and will help themselves to them. They like to get tipsy, and will indulge themselves whenever they can, in spite of chastisements. Their intoxication is characterized by the same symptoms as man's—weak knees, thick tongue, and unsteady movements. This identity of the effects of intoxication extends to other animals: asses and horses have been seen drunk; and dogs, which generally refuse wine, can be made to accept alcoholic drinks if they are sufficiently diluted and sweetened; while, as we have seen, monkeys of different species often exhibit antipathies to one another, those of the same species will assist one another, provided they are not sexual rivals. This trait of mutual helpfulness appears to exist in all animals that have organs of prehension—as among the climbing birds and those insects which have mandibles. The instinct is quite well developed among monkeys, and those of the same family or troop exhibit traits of mutual assistance that might be very properly compared with those shown by men in their relations with one another. The monkeys in Sumatra, according to Cesare Moreno, are very troublesome in the gardens, and even in houses, when they can find entrance into them; and no kind of inclosure seems adequate to protect fruits and vegetables from their depredations. Forming a line in order to pass their spoil from hand to hand, they scale the walls, enter at the doors or windows, and leisurely pillage all that they can find. Then they retire to the woods, to dress themselves up in the gayly colored cloths which they may have stolen, while they have a particular fancy for whatever will give a metallic reflection. They