SIMIAN SAGACITY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 24 June 1925, Page 7

SIMIAN SAGACITY.

DOES THE APE THINK?

One of the changes in comparative psychology is a higher appreciation of the menta’ capacity of anthropoid apes (writes Professor ■). Arthur Thomson. in John o’Londoji's Weekly). Perhaps we are also becoming more precisely aware of their limitations, but Along certain lines we. have already iecoiitlv been under-estimating their ability. Too often, though not always, tliev have been judged by what they did or did not do when they were out of sorts and out of humour. JUG-BRAINED CRFAITRES. Anntomical'y regarded, the anthropoid apes have higlilv developed brains, suggesting indeed in their size and wrinklediiess that there was abundant intellectual resources should there be anv need. For it may he taken as an' axiom that no creature save man shows more cleverness than its conditions of life demand. The dog, evolved in partnership, with man, shows more cleverness than the aucestra' wolf, though that is clever enough. Di\ •Romano's “Sally,” a wel’ - endowed chimpanzee, used to hand her teacher four straws when she was asked for lour. The association between the sound “lour” and the number four luld been established. But when she was i'u a inirrv for the reward, she would sometimes try to make three straws pass for foul', hv, doubling one arid showing two ends between her linger and thumb a'oug with the others. When the trick was detected and t]ie 'reward refused, she would straighten the doubled straw and pick up a fourth! Sally was not slow in the upIN VENTING A .'LEVER. Anthropoid apes are fond of experimenting. and at a higher Vive I than monkeys. One of Dr. Hoi nadny’s ora-ngs once invented a lever, that is to sav he found out how a bar could he used as a lever. Whereupon he became a trial to patience and very .expensive. For he invented more levers, and derited great pleasure from their effectiveness as destructive instruments. He had a'ways been anxious lo look into the adjoining cage, separated from his by a thick partition, hut ho could not get his head between the vertical bars in front. )\ hen he learned to use levers, however, success came within his -reach. For he took his strong trapeze bar and bent two of the verticals so widely apart that he was able to get his head through and look round the corner. The young gori'la which Miss Cunningham educated so carefully in London was in many ways like a boy—only more biddable. One day. when Miss Cunningham was going out shopping, and had a nice dress on.'the boy gorilla came and begged to he taken on her lap. AA'hen this was refused, he threw himself on the floor, sobbing like a vetted child. As no notice was taken, however. John Gorilla jumped up and. searching round the room, seized a newspaper. which he proceeded to spread over Miss Cunningham’s lap.' Now. such instances as these show that we may reasonably expect much of apes, and this has been confirmed hv Professor W. Kohler’s most admirable .stiffllie.s on the behaviour of chimpanzees.

INGENUITIES OF CHIMPANZEES. To reach some fruit fastened on tho roof they would pile ope box on another. sometimes making four storeys. One clay the keeper offered himself as a stool, hut took care to crouch so that the fruit would still he beyond the reach of the chimpanzee, who eagerly jumped on to his shoulders. AVhereupon the disappointed ape came quickly down and tried very energetically to raise the keeper into a more erect position.

Given a couple of bamboo rods, each too short to reach a banana outside Life cage, the chimpanze learned in the course of the first day to lit tho shorter and narrower rod into the larger one. thus making a length sufficient for the capture of the fruit. Even more striking, in another case, was a prolonged sharpening of a piece of wood so that it might lit into the cavity of the bamboo and make a double stick. There is no doubt ay to the power of working towards a more or less distant end, . provided always that the whole theatre of. operations .is within the creature’s range of vision. For it seems that a slender capacity for working with “images” is one of the chimpanzee's greatest- limitations. And poverty of speech js another. A TOUCH OF NATURE. Professor Kohler gave a female chimpanzee. called liana. a hand mirror, and that' proved a- great find. She gazed into it long and intently, looked up and looked down, put it to her face and licked it once, stared at it again, and then suddenly grasped with her free hand in behind. She was so startled at finding only empty space that she let the mirror fall, only to pick it iib again, however, and continue her “through the looking glass” experiments. Very comical were hei attempts' to lie in wait for her double using her free hand to make a sudden grab. -The use of' the mirror spread, and became, for a time. the. fashion. But so far as observation went, the chimpanzees seemed unable to get away from the’conviction that there was another fellow behind the looking glass. The chimpanzees were kept in very wholesome conditions, in Teheriffe," and we get a vivid impression not only of their nimble wits. I.nit of their essential sociability. Professor Kohler insists on this: “A ‘ chimpanzee kept in solitude is no chimpanzee at all,” They are . creatures of feeling, and if tliev see one of their fellows ip, pain or distress thev arc full of compassion. The chimpanzee’s fellow-feeling with man is not less eloquent.