chance was given her to go on with the functions of motherhood.
Her breasts contained plenty of milk, and the flow was due to
start on the second day after the infant's arrival.
Day and night the baby was jealously confined in that massive and
powerful groin,--and _under too much pressure!_ When the baby
cried, and kicked, and struggled to get free, Suzette would
nervously rearrange her straw bed, carefully pick from the tiny
fingers every straw that they had clutched, and settle down again.
If the struggle was soon renewed, Suzette would change the infant
over to the other groin, and close upon it as before.
Sleeping or waking, walking, sitting or lying down, she held it
there. If we attempted to touch the infant, the mother instantly
became savage and dangerous. Not one human finger was permitted to
touch it. For hours, and for days, we anxiously watched for
nursing to begin; but in vain. At last we became almost frantic
from the spectacle of the infant being slowly starved to death
because the mother did not realize that it needed her milk, and
that she alone could promote nursing. _Her mother instinct
utterly failed to supply the link that alone could connect infancy
to motherhood, and furnish life._
Of course this failure was due to poor Suzette's artificial life,
and unnatural surroundings. Had she been all alone, in the depths
of a tropical forest, Nature would have proceeded along her usual
lines. But in our Primate House, Suzette felt that her infant was
surrounded by a host of strange enemies, from whom it must be
strongly and persistently _guarded and defended._ That was
the idea that completely dominated her mind, ruled out all human
help, and blocked the main process of nature.
During the eight days that the infant lived, it was able to reach
her breast and nurse only once, for about one minute; and then
back it went to its prison, where it died from sheer lack of
nourishment.
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.
At last a chain of circumstances placed an intellectual and
sensible gorilla, two years of age, in the hands of a family
specially fitted by education and home surroundings to develop its
mind and its manners. The results of those efforts have given to
the gorilla an entirely new mental status. Thanks to the
enterprise and diligence of Major Rupert Penny and Miss Cunningham
in purchasing and caring for a sick and miserable young male
gorilla,--a most hazardous risk,--a new chapter in wild-animal
psychology now is to be written.
In December, 1918, "John Gorilla" was purchased in a London
department store, out of a daily atmosphere heated to _85
degrees_, and a nightly condition of solitude and terror. From
that awful state it was taken to live in Major Penny's comfortable
apartments. John was seriously ill. He was in a "rickety"
condition, and he weighed only 32 pounds. With a pure atmosphere,
kept at 65 degrees only, and amid good surroundings, he soon
became well. He attained such robust health and buoyant spirits
that in March, 1921, he stood 40 1/2 inches high and weighed 112
pounds.
At my solicitation Miss Cunningham wrote out for me the very
remarkable personal history of that wonderful animal,--apparently
the most wonderful gorilla ever observed in captivity. It is a
clear, straightforward and convincing record, and not one of its
statements is to be for one moment doubted. While it is too long
to reproduce here in its entirety, I will present a condensation
of it, in Miss Cunningham's own words that will record the salient
facts,--with no changes save in arrangement.
Miss Cunningham says:
LONELINESS. "We soon found it was impossible to leave him alone at
night, because he shrieked every night, and nearly all night, from
loneliness and fear. This we found he had done in the store where
he lived before coming to us. He always began to cry directly he
saw the assistants putting things away for the night. We found
that this loneliness at night was trying on his health and
appetite. As soon as possible my nephew had his bed made up every
night in the room adjoining the cage, with the result that John
was quite happy, and began to grow and put on fat.
TREATMENT. "I fed him, washed his hands, face and feet twice a
day, and brushed and combed his hair,--which he would try to do
himself whenever he got hold of the brush or comb. He soon got to
like all this.
TRAINING. "My next idea was to teach him to be strictly clean in
his habits. It was my ambition to be able to have him upstairs in
our house as an ordinary member of the household. I taught him
first as a child is taught and handled. This took some time. At
first I could not make him understand what we expected of him,
even though I always petted him and gave him grapes (of which he
was especially fond), but I think at first he imagined that this
treatment was a punishment. At first, without other reasons, he
would roll on the floor and shriek, but directly he understood
what was expected of him he soon learned, and began to behave
excellently.
"This training occupied quite six weeks. About February, 1919, we
took him out of his cage, and allowed him the freedom of the
house. Thereafter he would run upstairs to the bathroom of his own
accord, turning the doorknob of whatever room he was in, and also
opening the door of the bathroom.... He would get out of bed in
the night by himself, go back to bed, and pull the blankets over
himself quite neatly.
FOOD. "John's appetite seemed to tire of foods very quickly. The
only thing he stuck to was milk, which he liked best when warmed.
We began by giving him a quart a day, rising to three and one-half
quarts a day. I found that he preferred to choose his own food, so
I used to prepare for him several kinds, such as bananas, oranges,
apples, grapes, raisins, currants, dates and any small fruits in
season, such as raspberries or strawberries, _all of which he
liked to have warmed!_
"These displays I placed on a high shelf in the kitchen, where he
could get them with difficulty. I think that he thought himself
very clever when he stole anything. He never would eat anything
stale. He was extremely fond of fresh lemon jelly, but he never
would touch it after the second day. He loved roses, _to
eat_, more than anything. The more beautiful they were, the
more he liked them, but he never would eat faded roses. He never
cared much for nuts of any other kind than baked peanuts, save
walnuts. I found that nuts gave him dreadful spells of
indigestion.
USE OF TOOLS. "He knew what hammers and chisels were for, but for
obvious reasons we never encouraged him in anything to do with
carpentry. With cocoanuts he was very funny. He knew that they had
to be broken, and he would try to break them on the floor. When he
found he couldn't manage that, he would bring the nut to one of us
and try to make us understand what he wished. If we gave him a
hammer he would try to use it on the nut, and on not being able to
manage that, he would give back to us both the hammer and the
cocoanut.
GAMES AND PLAY. "We never taught him any tricks; he simply
acquired knowledge himself. A game he was very fond of was to
pretend he was blind, shutting his eyes very tightly, and running
around the room knocking against tables and chairs. . . . We found
that exercise was the thing he required to keep him in health, and
my nephew used to give him plenty of that by playing hide and seek
with him in the morning before breakfast, and in the evening
before dinner,--up and down stairs, in and out of all the rooms.
He simply loved that game, and would giggle and laugh while being
chased.... If he saw that a stranger was at all nervous about him,
he loved running past him, and giving him a smack on the leg,--and
you could see him grin as he did so.
"A thing he greatly enjoyed was to stand on the top rail of his
bed and jump on the springs, head over heels, just like a child.
CAUTION. "He was very cautious. He would never run into a dark
room without first turning on the light.
FEAR. "John seemed to realize danger for other people in high
places, for if anyone looked out of a high window he always pushed
them away if he were at the window himself, but if he was away
from it he would run and pull them back. . . . He was very much
afraid of full-grown sheep, cows and horses, but he loved colts,
calves and lambs, proving to us that he recognized youth.
WOODS VS. FIELDS. "We found he did not like fields or open
country, but he was very happy in a garden, or in woods. . . . He
always liked nibbling twigs, and to eat the green buds of trees.
TABLE MANNERS. "His table manners were really very good. He always
sat at the table, and whenever a meal was ready, would pull his
own chair up to his place. He did not care to eat a great deal,
but he especially liked to drink water out of a tumbler. . . . He
was the least greedy of all the animals I have ever seen. He never
would snatch anything, and always ate very slowly. He always drank
a lot of water, which he would always get himself whenever he
wanted it by turning on a tap. Strange to say, he always turned
off the water when he had finished drinking.
PLAYING TO THE GALLERY. "John seemed to think that everyone was
delighted to see him, and he would throw up the window whenever he
was permitted. If he found the sash locked he would unfasten it,
and when a big crowd had collected outside he would clap his chest
and his hands. [Footnote: In the summer of 1920 a globe-trotter
just arrived from England excitedly reported to me: "While driving
along a street in London _I saw a live gorilla_ in the upper
window of an apartment. It was a _real gorilla;_ and it
clapped its hands at us as we looked! Now _what_ did it all
mean?" Fortunately I was able to explain it.]
PUNISHMENT AND REPENTANCE. "We made one very great mistake with
John. His cage was used as a punishment, with the result that we
never could leave him there alone, for he would shriek all the
time. . . . Now, a stick was the one thing that our gorilla would
not stand from anyone, save Major Penny and myself. Presently we
found out that the only way to deal with him was to tell him that
he was very naughty, and push him away from us; when he would roll
on the floor and cry, and be very-repentant, holding one's ankles,
and putting his head on our feet.
AFFECTION FOR A CHILD. "He was especially fond of my little niece,
three years old. John and she used to play together for hours, and
he seemed to understand what she wanted him to do. If she ever
cried, and her mother would not go and pick her up, John would
always try and nip the mother, or give her a smack with the full
weight of his hand, evidently thinking she was the cause of the
child's tears.
A SENSE OF GOOD ORDER. "He loved to take everything
out of a wastepaper basket and strew the contents all over the
room, after which, when told to do so he would pick up everything
and put it all back, but looking very bored all the while. If the basket
was very full he would push it all down very carefully, to make room
for more. He would always put things back when told to do so, such
as books from a bookshelf or things from a table.
[Illustration caption: THE GORILLA WITH THE WONDERFUL MIND Owned
by Major Rupert Penny, educated by Miss Alyse Cunningham, London,
1918-1921]
TWO CASES OF ORIGINAL THOUGHT. (1) "One day we were going out, for
which I was sitting ready dressed, when John wished to sit in my
lap. My sister, Mrs. Penny, said: 'Don't let him. He will spoil
your dress.'
"As my dress happened to be a light one I pushed him away, and
said, 'No!' He at once lay on the floor and cried just like a
child, for about a minute. Then he rose, looked round the room,
found a newspaper, went and picked it up, spread it on my lap and
climbed up. This was quite the cleverest thing I ever saw him do.
_Even those who saw it said they would not have believed it had
they not seen it themselves!_ Both my nephews, (Major Penny and
Mr. E. C. Penny), his wife and my sister (Mrs. Penny) were in the
room, and can testify to the correctness of the above record.
(2) "Another clever thing John did, although I suspect this was
due more to instinct that to downright cleverness. A piece of
filet beefsteak had just come from the butcher. Inasmuch as
occasionally I gave him a small mouthful of raw beef, a small
piece of the coarser part of the steak was cut off, and I gave it
to him. He tasted it, then gravely handed it back to me. Then he
took my hand and put it on the finer part of the meat. From that I
cut off a tiny piece, gave it to him, and he ate it. When my
nephew came home he wouldn't believe it, so I tried it again, with
the same result, except that then he did not even attempt to eat
the coarser meat."
* * * * *
Concerning Miss Cunningham's wonderful story, I wish to state that
I believe all of it,--because there is no reason to do otherwise!
It sets a new mark in gorilla lore, and it lifts a curtain from an
animal mind that previously was unknown, and very generally
misunderstood.
To the Doubting Thomases who will doubt some portions of Miss
Cunningham's story, let me cite, by way of caution, the following
history:
When Du Chaillu discovered the gorilla, and came to America and
England with his specimens to tell about it, he said that when a
big gorilla is attacked and made angry it beats its breast,
repeatedly, with its clenched fists. The wiseacres of that day
solemnly shook their heads and said: "Oh, no! That can not be
true. No ape ever did that. He is romancing!" But now we know that
this breast-beating and chest-clapping habit is to a gorilla a
common-place performance, even in captivity.
Sometimes there are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in all our philosophy.
XI
THE MIND OF THE ELEPHANT
It was in the jungles of the Animallai Hills of southern India
that I first became impressed by the mental capacity of the Indian
elephant. I saw many wild herds. I saw elephants at work, and at
one period I lived in a timber camp, consisting of working
elephants and mahouts. I saw a shrewd young elephant-driver
soundly flogged for stealing an elephant, farming it out to a
native timber contractor for four days, and then elaborately
pretending that the animal had been "lost." Later on I saw
elephant performances in the "Greatest Show on Earth" and
elsewhere, and for eighteen years I have been chief mourner over
the idiosyncrasies of Gunda and Alice. If I do not now know
something about elephants, then my own case of animal intelligence
is indeed hopeless.
To me it seems that the only thing necessary to establish the
elephant as an animal of remarkable intellect and power of
original reasoning is to set forth the unadorned facts that lie
ready to hand.
Cuvier recorded the opinion that in sagacity the elephant in no
way excels the dog and some other species of carnivora. Sir
Emerson Tennent, even after some study of the elephant, was
disposed to award the palm for intelligence to the dog, but only
"from the higher degree of development consequent on his more
intimate domestication and association with man." In the mind of
G. P. Sanderson we fear that familiarity with the elephant bred a
measure of contempt; and this seems very strange. He says:
"Its reasoning faculties are undoubtedly far below those of the
dog, and possibly of other animals; and in matters beyond its
daily experience it evinces no special discernment."
To me it seems that all three of those opinions are off the
target. The dog is not a wild, untrammeled animal; and neither
dogs, cats nor savage men evince any special discernment "beyond
the range of their daily experience." Moreover, there are some
millions of tame men of whom the same may be said with entire
safety.
Very often the question is asked: "Is the African elephant equal
in intelligence and training capacity to the Indian species?"
To this we must answer: Not proven. We do not know. The African
species never has been tried out on the same long and wide basis
as the Indian. Many individual African elephants, very
intelligent, have been trained, successfully, and have given good
accounts of themselves. For my own part I am absolutely sure that
when taken in hand at the same age, and trained on the same basis
as the Indian species, the African elephant will be found mentally
quite the equal of the Indian, and just as available for work or
performances.
No negro tribe really likes to handle elephants and train them.
The Indian native loves elephants, and enjoys training them and
working with them. It is these two conditions that have left the
African elephant far behind the procession. The African elephant
belongs to the great Undeveloped Continent. He has been, and he
still is, mercilessly pursued and slaughtered for his tusks. All
the existing species of African elephants are going down and out
before the ivory hunters. We fear that they will all be dead one
hundred years from this time, or even less. A century hence, when
the last _africanus_ has gone to join the mammoth and the
mastodon, his well protected wild congener in India still will be
devouring his four hundred pounds of green fodder per day, and the
tame ones will be performing to amuse the swarming human millions
of this overcrowded world.
In the minds of our elephant keepers, familiarity with elephants
has bred just the reverse of contempt. Both Thuman and Richards
are quite sure that elephants are the wisest of all wild animals.
Despite the very great amount of trouble made for Keeper Thuman by
Gunda, the Indian, and Kartoum, the African, Thuman grows
enthusiastic over the shrewdness of their "cussedness." He is
particularly impressed by their skill in opening chain shackles,
and unfastening the catches and locks of doors and gates. And
really, Kartoum's ingenuity in finding out how to open latches and
bolts is almost inexhaustible, as well as marvelous.
Keeper Richards declares that our late African pygmy elephant,
Congo, was the wisest animal he ever has known. I have elsewhere
referred to his ability in shutting his outside door. Richards
taught him to accept coins from visitors, deposit them in a box,
then pull a cord to ring a bell, one pull for each coin
represented. The keeper devised four different systems of intimate
signals by which he could tell Congo to stop at the right point,
and all these were so slight that no one ever detected them. One
was by a voice-given cue, another by a hand motion, and a third
was by an inclination of the body.
Keeper Richards relates that Congo would go out in his yard,
collect a trunkful of peanuts from visitors, bring them inside and
secretly cache them in a corner behind his feed box. Then he would
go out for more graft peanuts, bring them in, hide them and
proceed to eat the first lot. There are millions of men who do not
know what it is to conserve something that can be eaten.
In this discussion of the intellectual powers and moral qualities
of the elephant I will confine myself to my own observations on
_Elephas indicus_, except where otherwise stated. A point to
which we ask special attention is that in endeavoring to estimate
the mental capacity of the elephant, we will base no general
conclusions upon _any particularly intelligent individual_,
as all mankind is tempted to do in discussions of the intelligence
of the dog, the cat, the horse, parrot and ape. On the contrary,
it is our desire to reveal the mental capacity of _every
elephant living_, tame or wild, except the few individuals with
abnormal or diseased minds. It is not to be shown how successfully
_an_ elephant has been taught by man, but how _all_
elephants in captivity have been taught, and the mental capacity
of _every_ elephant.
Under the head of intellectual qualities we have first to consider
the elephant's
POWERS OF INDEPENDENT OBSERVATIONS, AND REASONING FROM CAUSE TO
EFFECT