Passage 1, The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observation by Hornaday, discusses his methodology used to understand an ape’s mind. Passage 2, taken from Anecdotes of the Habit and Instinct of Animals by Mrs. R. Lee, discusses her close personal examination of monkeys.
Passage 1
In the study of animal minds, much depends upon the method employed. It seems to me that the problem-box method of the investigators of “animal behavior”
5 leaves much to be desired. Certainly it is not calculated to develop the mental status of animals along lines of natural mental progression. To place a wild creature in a great artificial contrivance,
10 fitted with doors, cords, levers, passages and what not, is enough to daze or frighten any timid animal out of its normal state of mind and nerves. To put a wild sapajou monkey,— weak, timid and
15 afraid,—in a strange and formidable prison box filled with strange machinery, and call upon it to learn or to invent strange mechanical processes, is like bringing a boy of ten years up to a four-
20 cylinder duplex Hoe printing-and-folding press, and saying to him: “Now, go ahead and find out how to run this machine, and print both sides of a signature upon it.”
The average boy would shrink from the
25 mechanical monster, and have no stomach whatever for “trial by error.”
I think that the principle of determining the mind of a wild animal along the lines of the professor is not the best way. It
30 should be developed along the natural lines of the wild-animal mind. It should be stimulated to do what it feels most inclined to do, and educated to achieve real mental progress.
35 I think that the ideal way to study the minds of apes, baboons and monkeys would be to choose a good location in a tropical or sub- tropical climate that is neither too wet nor too dry, enclose an
40 area of five acres with an unclimbable
fence, and divide it into as many corrals as there are species to be experimented upon. Each corral would need a shelter house and indoor playroom. The stage
45 properties should be varied and abundant, and designed to stimulate curiosity as well as activity.
Somewhere in the program I would try to teach orang-utans and chimpanzees the
50 properties of fire, and how to make and tend fires. I would try to teach them the seed-planting idea, and the meaning of seedtime and harvest. I would teach sanitation and cleanliness of habit,—a
55 thing much more easily done than most persons suppose. I would teach my apes to wash dishes and to cook, and I am sure that some of them would do no worse than some human members of the
60 profession who now receive $50 per month, or more, for spoiling food.
In one corral I would mix up a chimpanzee, an orang-utan, a golden baboon and a good-tempered rhesus
65 monkey. My apes would begin at two years old, because after seven or eight years of age all apes are difficult, or even impossible, as subjects for peaceful experimentation.
70 I would try to teach a chimpanzee the difference between a noise and music, between heat and cold, between good food and bad food.
Passage 2
That monkeys enjoy movement, that they
75 delight in pilfering, in outwitting each other and their higher brethren—men; that they glory in tearing and destroying the works of art by which they are surrounded in a domestic state; that they
80 lay the most artful plans to affect their purposes, is all perfectly true; but the terms mirthful and merry, seem to me to be totally misapplied, in reference to their feelings and actions; for they do all in
85 solemnity and seriousness. Do you stand under a tree, whose thick foliage completely screens you from the sun, and you hope to enjoy perfect shade and
repose; a slight rustling proves that
90 companions are near; presently a broken twig drops upon you, then another, you raise your eyes, and find that hundreds of other eyes are staring at you. In another minute you see the grotesque faces to
95 which those eyes belong, making grimaces, as you suppose, but it is no such thing, they are solemnly contemplating the intruder; they are not pelting him in play, it is their business to
100 comdrive him from their domain. Raise your arm, the boughs shake, the chattering begins, and the sooner you decamp; the more you will shew your discretion.
Watch the ape or monkey with which you
105 come into closer contact; does he pick up a blade of grass, he will examine it with as much attention as if he were determining the value of a precious stone. Do you put food before him, he tucks it
110 into his mouth as fast as possible, and when his cheek pouches are so full that they cannot hold any more, he looks at you as if he seriously asked your approval of his laying up stores for the future. If he
115 destroy the most valuable piece of glass or china in your possession, he does not look as if he enjoyed the mischief, but either puts on an impudent air, as much as to say, “I don’t care,” or calmly tries to let
120 you know he thought it his duty to destroy your property. Savage, violent and noisy are they when irritated or disappointed, and long do they retain the recollection of an affront. I once annoyed
125 a monkey in the collection of the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, by preventing him from purloining the food of one of his companions; in doing which I gave him a knock upon his paws. It was lucky that
130 strong wires were between us, or he would probably have hurt me severely in his rage.