since the death of “Sally,” the chimpanzee, claims the highest place in
animal organization among the inmates of the Zoo. He is a six-months-old
baby, of extremely grave and deliberate manners, and perhaps the most
irresistibly comical creature which has ever been seen in London. He is
extremely well-behaved, not in the least shy, and as friendly with
strangers as with his keeper. His arms are as strong as those of a man,
while his legs and feet seem to be used less for walking than as a
subsidiary pair of arms and hands. He is thus able, when much
interested, to hold his face between two hands, and to rest his chin on
the third, which gives him an air of pondering reflection beyond any
power of human imitation. “He knows there’s something up,” remarked his
keeper, as we entered the house, and the ape came to the bars and sat
down to inspect his visitors. As the sounds of the violin began, he
suspended himself against the bars, and then, with one hand above his
head, dropped the other to his side, and listened with grave attention.
As the sound increased in volume, he dropped to the ground, and all the
hair on his body stood up with fear. He then crept away on all fours,
looking back over his shoulder like a frightened baby; and taking up his
piece of carpet, which does duty for a shawl, shook it out, and threw it
completely over his head and body, and drew it tight round him. After a
short time, as the music continued, he gained courage and put out his
head, and at last threw away the cloak and came forward again. By this
time his hair was lying flat, and his fear had given place to pleasure.
He sat down, and, chewing a straw, sat gravely listening to the music.
“He looks just like our manager when a new piece is on,” remarked the
violinist, as he concluded his share of the serenade. The piccolo at
first frightened the monkey, but he soon held out his hand for the
instrument, which he was allowed to examine. The flute did not interest
him, but the bagpipes—reproduced on the violin—achieved a triumph. He
first flattened his nose against the bars, and then, scrambling to the
centre of the cage, turned head over heels, and lastly, sitting down,
chucked handfuls of straw in the air and over his head, “smiling,” as
the keeper said, with delight and approval.
[Illustration:
TIGER LISTENING TO SOFT MUSIC. From a photograph
by Gambier Bolton.
]
The Capuchin monkeys are kept in a large cage next to one containing a
number of grey macaques. The little Capuchins were busy eating their
breakfast; but the violin soon attracted an audience. The Capuchins
dropped their food and clung to the bars, listening, with their heads on
one side, with great attention. The keeper drew our notice to the next
cage. There, clinging in rows to the front wires, was a silent assembly
of a dozen macaques, all listening intently to the concert which their
neighbours were enjoying. At the first sounds of the flute most of these
ran away; and the piccolo excited loud and angry screams from all sides.
Clearly in this case the violin was the favourite. We then decided to
take the opinion of some of the largest and least vivacious animals, and
selected the young African elephant for our next auditor. As this animal
had shown the utmost dislike to the violin on a previous occasion, the
flute was employed to open the concert, and with complete success. The
elephant stood listening with deep attention, one foot raised from the
ground, and its whole body still—a rare concession to the influence of
music from one of the most restless of all animals. So long as the flute
continued, it remained motionless and listening. But the change to the
piccolo was resented. After the first bar, the elephant twisted round,
and stood with its back to the performer, whistling and snorting and
stamping its feet. The violin was less disliked, but the signs of
disapproval were unmistakable. The deer, as before, were strangely
attracted by the violin, and showed equal pleasure in the tones of the
flute; the gemul deer, for instance, ran up at once to listen to the
latter, their ears and tails being in constant movement at every change
of tone or tune. Even the ostrich seemed to enjoy the violin and flute,
though it showed marked signs of dislike at the piccolo, writhing its
neck and walking uneasily up and down its enclosure. The ibexes were
startled at the piccolo, first rushing forward to listen, and then
taking refuge on a pile of rocks, from which, however, the softer music
of the flute brought them down to listen at the railing. The wild asses
and zebras left the hay with which their racks had just been filled; and
even the tapir, which lives next door, got up to listen to the violin;
while the flute set the Indian wild asses kicking with excitement. But
the piccolo had no charms for any of them, and they all returned to
their interrupted breakfasts. So far, the piccolo had shown its
inability to please in most cases. Of its power to annoy we soon had an
amusing proof. The Lion House was almost deserted by the few visitors
who were in the Gardens, and the opportunity of making trial of the
musical preferences of its inmates was too good to be lost. The
violin-player approached a sleeping tiger, which was lying on its side
with its feet stretched and touching the bars, and played so softly that
the opening notes were scarcely audible. As the sound rose, the tiger
awoke, and, raising its head without moving its body, looked for some
time with fixed attention at the player. It remained for some time in a
very fine attitude listening to the music, and then making the curious
sound which, in tiger language, does duty for “purring,” it lay down
again and dozed. The soft music still continued, as we were engaged in
watching a cheetah, which showed great uneasiness and fear at the
sounds, making sudden starts and bounds, raising the fur on its neck,
and waving its tail from side to side like an angry cat. But whatever
the cheetah’s emotions of dislike, the tiger did not share them, but lay
half or wholly asleep, as if the chords which were being played made an
agreeable lullaby. Judge, then, of our surprise, when, at the first
notes of the piccolo, which succeeded the violin, the tiger sprang to
its feet and rushed up and down the cage, shaking its head and ears, and
lashing its tail from side to side. As the notes became still louder and
more piercing, the tiger bounded across the den, reared on its hind
feet, and exhibited the most ludicrous contrast to the calm dignity and
repose with which it had listened to the violin. Then came the final and
most successful experiment. The piccolo was stopped, and a very soft air
played upon the flute. The difference in effect was seen at once. The
tiger ceased to “rampage,” and the leaps subsided to a gentle walk,
until the animal came to the bars, and, standing still and quiet once
more, listened with pleasure to the music.
No doubt it is possible to draw very different conclusions from
experiments of so imperfect a character as those which we have
described. But it would probably be fair to infer that, for some cause,
the violin and flute, which human taste has marked as among the most
pleasing of musical instruments, are those most acceptable to animals
under that unknown law which determines this branch of animal æsthetics.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TALKING BIRDS.
THE parrots and macaws which live in the Parrot House at the Zoo are so
numerous and noisy that the keeper has no leisure to teach them to talk.
But a parrot which can say a very few words is very quickly imitated by
its neighbours, and a new phrase or word travels from cage to cage,
should the birds in the immediate neighbourhood of the accomplished
talker be of one of the imitative species. Among birds there are
progressive and non-progressive races, which are indifferent to
“self-improvement,” and never try to learn a song of their own, much
less to imitate the voices of other birds or of men. But the desire to
gain new notes is very much more common than is generally believed, and
there are at least twenty kinds of birds which are able to reproduce
even the complex forms of articulate human speech. Aristotle mentions an
Indian parrot which could talk, and “when it drank wine was somewhat
improper,” habits and language which it had picked up, no doubt, from
Phœnician sailors. But the most accomplished talker of Indian birds is
the mynah, a handsome purple-black bird, with a short tail, orange legs
and beak, and bright yellow ear-flaps, which run round to the back of
its head like a collar. It is a bold, lively bird, with a mellow song
and whistle of its own. Its power of reproducing human speech is
wonderful, and it exhibits the greatest anxiety that the tones should be
correct, first repeating them softly to itself, with its head on one
side, and then shouting out the words.
In the Insect House at the Zoo there lives a fine old mynah, who was
“deposited” in 1883. While a visitor is examining the Indian moths
coming out of their cocoons, he may hear behind him a thoughtful cough,
and the “Hulloa!” shouted with startling suddenness. It is the mynah,
anxious to be friendly, and to begin a conversation. The Hindoo traders
in the bazaars avail themselves of the mynah’s services in a curious
way. They teach it to pronounce the holy name of Rama; and while the
master’s thoughts are on earthly gains intent, the bird compounds for
the neglect by shouting incessantly the name of the god, and texts in
honour of his power. If the poet Ovid’s Indian parrot finds its way, as
he hoped, to the paradise of birds, and there
“Convertit volucres in sua verba pias,”
it must surely meet the mynahs also.
Another bird which talks better than most, and whistles better than any,
is the piping crow. It is a lively black-and-white bird, as large as a
rook, but far more elegant in form. Several specimens inhabit the
Gardens, but the best is in the western Aviary, where it whistles
“Merrily danced the Quaker,” in tones like a flute.
The American blue jay, a most brilliant creature, with lines of emerald
and turquoise, is an admirable mimic of many sounds, even of the human
voice. Wilson writes of one “which had all the tricks and loquacity of a
parrot; pilfered all it could conveniently carry off, answered to its
name with great sociability when called upon, and could articulate a
number of words pretty distinctly.” Our English jays can also talk, and
magpies, especially if kept in good health and spirits by being allowed
partial freedom, soon pick up words. Jackdaws and the American crow can
also be made to talk. But in all the crow tribe, except the piping crow,
the reproduction of human speech seems to be more a trick of mimicry
than an effort to acquire a substitute for song. Parrots, mynahs, and
some cockatoos take infinite pains to learn correctly and increase their
stock of phrases. But the magpie or jay learns what is easy, and takes
no further trouble. Even the raven seldom has many words at command,
though, owing to its deep, resonant voice and imposing size, it attracts
more attention than a chattering jay.
The raven is the largest creature, except man, that can “talk,” and
fancy and superstition have naturally exaggerated its powers. Still the
speech of the raven has a depth and solemnity which that of no other
bird possesses, and whether in boding utterances, like those attributed
to the raven in _Barnaby Rudge_, or by Edgar Allen Poe, or in plain
business, like the raven in Guildford Street, which used to say “Ostler,
here’s a gentleman,” when a customer arrived, its powers are generally
marked and recorded. A fine bird, belonging to a “statesman” in
Northumberland, used to say “Poor old Ralph,” or call the collie dog in
the exact tones used by its master. “It’s my very own voice,” its owner
used to say, laughing, as the dog came running in from the garden. But
the crow tribe, though as clever as some parrots, are not so easily
domesticated, and their beaks and tongues are less well suited for the
musical sounds of human speech. Most of the parrots, and some cockatoos
and macaws, have both the mental and physical gifts necessary to make
them excel in talking. Parrots of all classes have fleshy tongues,
moistened with saliva, and the arched beak provides a substitute for our
palate and teeth. They have also wide nostrils, and their natural voices
are loud enough and strong enough to equal the volume of human speech.
In disposition they are highly imitative. Cockatoos are almost like
monkeys in mimicking men. For instance, if you bow to them, they will
make elaborate bows. If you put your head on one side, they will often
do so too. But with many parrots the desire to learn new sounds is not,
we think, a mere trick of mimicry, but the desire to possess a song—an
accomplishment with which to please, identical in kind with the motive
which prompts the young of singing-birds to learn their parents’ notes,
or, in the case of the canary, to learn and improve upon a song, not
their own, which they have transmitted to their posterity.
The following account of the development of the talking power in a young
parrot of which we have seen much lately, is, we submit, a strong
confirmation of this view. Our informant is a lady whose sympathies are
by no means limited to parrots, as the context will show, and her
observations are wholly reliable. “We bought ‘Barry,’” she writes, “when
he was quite young before his feathers were fully grown; and we had him
about a year before he began to talk. Then he began to make very odd
noises, as if he were trying to say words, but could not quite do it.
Now he constantly learns new words and sentences, and early in the
morning I hear him practising them over to himself, _exactly as our
babies used to do in the early morning hours in bed_. If he improves as
much in the next ten years as he has in the last, he should be able to
recite a poem if we teach him.” There is no reason why a parrot should
not continue to increase his stock of phrases as he grows older, if the
supposition that he looks upon it as an accomplishment for which he is
in some way the better is correct. The butcher-bird, for instance, and
the sedge-warbler do not rest _satisfied_ with learning their own notes,
but often learn and reproduce the notes of other birds in great
perfection. The mockingbird, which, like the sedge-warbler, has a fine
song of its own, does the same. But the parrot has an advantage in being
very long-lived and constantly in human company. The young parrot
mentioned before gave an excellent instance of the association in its
mind of words with things. Before it could talk, it was friendly with a
kitten which used to enter its cage. This kitten was sent away, and for
a year there was not another in the house. Then a grey Persian kitten
was bought, and when introduced to the parrot was at once addressed as
“Kitty,” a word he had hardly heard since the departure of the other.
The _correctness_ of parrots’ imitation, the result, no doubt, of their
careful practice, is remarkable. A lady of the Dutch Court, visiting the
palace in the wood at the Hague soon after the death of the late Queen
of Holland, was startled by hearing the Queen’s voice exactly
reproduced. It was a white cockatoo that had been a great pet of hers,
which was in a corner of the room.
Parrots have no exclusive liking for the English language. They learn
German, French, and Dutch quite easily. Another parrot at the Hague went
through part of the Lord’s Prayer in Dutch at an afternoon party, with
other fragments of its mistress’s devotions, which it had heard when in
her room. All small white and sulphur cockatoos seem to say, “Küpper
crou” when they want their heads scratched. We have translated it,
“Scratch a poll;” but it is probably pure parrot language. Go up to any
cockatoo and say this to him, at the same time holding the hand well
above his head, and he will probably answer, and gradually lower his
head and crest to allow you to gently ruffle the feathers the wrong way.
Macaws do not seem to understand cockatoo language; but the grey parrots
often use much the same sound. It seems to be a call-note expressing
their willingness to make friends and be petted.
“Is the talking of birds due to mental or physical causes?” is a
question often asked. In the first place, no doubt, it is due to the
disposition of the bird. Some parrots and cockatoos never learn to talk,
though their organs of speech differ in no way from those of others that
do. They seem to be without the imitative bias, like the hawks which
have curved beaks and thick tongues, but are equally silent. But where
the disposition to mimic is present, physical causes limit or widen the
bird’s powers. Parrots and the crow tribe are both imitative, but the
parrots’ beaks and tongues are more suited for imitating human speech,
just as the raven, with his high-arched beak and big throat excels the
jay. Other birds with still less suitable organs, such as the
sedge-warbler, though excellent mimics, cannot reproduce human speech at
all. There seems no reason why parrots, if they would breed in
confinement, should not teach their accomplishments to their young ones,
as the canaries have done theirs. Perhaps in time the experiment may be
made.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELEPHANT LIFE IN ENGLAND
THE strangely artificial revival of elephant life in the countries north
of the Mediterranean, and in districts where the bones of the fossil
species show that they once lived and flourished naturally, is yearly
more remarkable. The European elephant herd in the present year numbers
one hundred and thirteen, or about thirty less than the annual catch in
the _keddahs_ of the Indian Government. Their health seems quite
independent of climate, to judge from the countries in which they are
kept, often with very rough provision against the chances and changes of
weather. Russia owns eighteen, Sweden and Norway four, France and
Belgium ten each, seven of which are in the great travelling menagerie
of the Lockharts, which migrates to and fro across the Franco-Belgian
frontier; Germany has thirty-four, and England about the same number;
Holland has eight, and Italy two.
The British stock is at present supplied almost entirely from Burmah.
There only in the East elephants are bred in a half-wild state and not
caught in the _heddahs_. They are brought over to Europe when quite
young, and are now so cheap that any one who pleases may become the
owner of a sober, well-behaved little elephant from four to five feet
high, delivered at the docks, for from £105 to £120, or not more than
the average price paid for first-class shire-horses. Their subsequent
development depends mainly upon their daily treatment. In those which
spend their lives at ease in the elephant palaces at the Zoological
Gardens the rate of growth is surprising, and they soon develop into
magnificent animals, not surpassed in size by the finest creatures in
the stables of Indian rajahs. The pair of Indian elephants now in the
Gardens are already nine feet and ten feet high at the shoulder
respectively, though when they reached the Gardens in 1876 they were
hardly bigger than a Shetland pony. But the greater number of English
elephants spend their time as hard-working members of the large circuses
and travelling menageries, and lead a wandering, homeless life, in
curious contrast to the comfort which surrounds the fortunate inmates of
the gardens of learned societies. Their deliberate movements mask a
wakeful self-possession which hardly ever deserts them, and whether
marching by the cornfields on the open downs, or through the streets of
a manufacturing town, the elephant never misses a chance of levying
contributions of food on the road. “Where didst thou teach thy elephant
that trick?” says Petersen Sahib, in Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s charming tale
of the elephant dance, when the animal holds the mahout’s son aloft in
its trunk. “Was it to help thee to steal green corn from the roof when
the ears are put out to dry?” “Not green corn, Protector of the
Poor-melons,” says little Toomai.
In England the elephant is not an accomplice, but helps himself freely
in the back streets of the towns, up which he is usually taken, to avoid
difficulties with the urban police. He has ever a sharp eye for an open
window or door, and many a batch of new loaves smoking on the dresser or
bunch of vegetables intended for the mid-day dinner, is extracted
through the window, before the good woman, who is admiring the
procession at the door, has time to rush back to the rescue. At Sanger’s
repository last year a fine gilded car came back for repairs. The body
of the car had been filled with loaves of bread on Saturday night and
then locked up. An elephant smelt the bread, and not being able to open
the lock, turned the whole car over to see if it would open in that way,
to the serious damage of the ornamental upper works. The clever picture
of the “Disputed Toll,” by Charlton Adams, in which an elephant is
painted breaking open a turnpike-gate, records an amusing incident of
elephant travel which occurred many years ago outside the pretty little
town of Sidmouth in South Devon. Van Ambrugh’s show was expected, and
the turnpike keeper locked the gate and demanded toll, not only for the
cars but for the animals. The elephant was leading the way, and after
much fruitless argument, its keeper, slipping through the turnstile for
foot-passengers, said to the elephant, “Come along, Fido,” and the
animal at once lifted the gate off its hinges and walked through. Cool
and sagacious on the march, they seem also thoroughly to enjoy the
tinsel and trappings, the music of the brass band, the lights, noise,
and crowd of an evening show. Perhaps there is something in this which
recalls to them memories of the “gorgeous East.” Take for instance the
annual “World’s Fair” at the Agricultural Hall, which a Hindoo would
describe as a very fine _tumasha_, and in which no one but an Oriental,
a British working-man, or an elephant, could keep his brains clear for
half-an-hour. Two large steam “round-abouts” at either end of the hall,
grinding a different tune with an engine of ten-horse power, form only a
portion of the bewildering attractions of this Palace of Delight.
Opposite each of these machines, at the time of the writer’s last visit,
was stalled a small Indian elephant, cool, collected, and sagacious, his
business mind wholly intent on raising contributions from the public.
One occupied a compartment in the centre of what was magnificently
described as the “Mammoth Wild Animal Congregation.” He was a very
little mammoth, not five feet high, black and bristly, supported on one
side by a Persian goat and a kangaroo, and on the other by a couple of
llamas. In front stood a stall of cakes, and to every visitor who came
past the elephant pointed out the biscuit pile, his trunk maintaining a
line true as the needle to the Pole, while his head and eye followed the
movements of the passer-by. When quite neglected and alone, he tried to
attract attention by dancing a kind of double-shuffle to the tune of the
“round-about.”
Some one ventured to give a biscuit to the unfortunate goat, its
neighbour. The elephant dexterously twisted it from between the nibbling
lips of the goat, and at once mounted guard to prevent any such
diversion of its dues again. With ears cocked and eye alert, he held his
trunk stretched out a few inches above the goat’s head, taking it away
for a moment to receive offerings tendered elsewhere, but switching it
back to the suspected quarter the moment the dainty was swallowed.
Elephants suffer from nervousness, and occasionally from unreasoning
panic, in England, just as they do in India. A windmill has been known
to cause them to jib like a horse, and a large and very tame female
Indian elephant at the Zoological Gardens actually died of fright,
caused by a thunderstorm in the summer of 1855. She was out at exercise,
when a violent and reverberant peal of thunder caused her to break away
from her keeper. When caught she was found to be in a pitiable state of
terror, shaking and trembling with violent spasmodic twitchings of the
whole body. When led back to her stable she continued to show
unmistakable symptoms of shock and collapse. In a short time she lay
down, and after a few days died, in spite of the anxious and skilled
attention which she received from the first.