AN INTELLIGENT APE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 115, 13 May 1909, Page 6

AN INTELLIGENT APE.

THE ''MISSING LINK."

The performance of "Consul,"' the chimpanzee, now being exhibited at the London Hippodrome, is says the London Spectator, probably the most remarkable in the history of trained, animals. The variety and the intricacy of the ape's series of gestures and actions are astonishing as their uncanny likeness to the action of a human being. He goes straight through his 'turn" with'the utmost readiness, almost without a hint or a reminder of what he is to do. He comes running in dressed in ordinary man's clothes, and hangs up first his hat and then his overcoat on pegs on a stand. Then he proceeds to have lunch. He is lifted into a chair by his valet, a napkin is handed to him, and he tucks it round his neck. Then he touches the electric bell at his side, and looks round with an air of polite boredom for the waiter. The waiter brings him a plate of carrots, which he eats, using a knife and fork, — mostly, with rather bad manners, the knife. At intervals, while eating, he drinks out of a wine-glass; he pours his elaret-and-water out of the bottle

with his left hand, and lifts the glass with his right hand. Having finished the carrots and claret, he touches the bell again, and the waiter brings a teapot, a cup, milk and sugar. He pours out a cup of tea, adds milk and sugar, and then tastes the tea with a spoon two or three times; then, finding it as he likes it, he drinks it off rather quickly so as to get the sugar at the bottom of the cup. Then he rings the bell again and looks round for a cigarette. The cigarette, in a holder, is brought with a box of matches; he puts the cigarette-holder in his mouth between his fingers, blows out the match, replaces the cigarette, and turns round in his chair, throwing his arms over the chair-back with the contented indolence of a smoker at peace with the world. After a little he decides to go to bed, and undresses himself carefully, taking off coat, waistcoat, trousers and shirt (the shirt is the uncanniest of all) he is then left with his boots, which he unlaces and pulls off. Before going to bed he washes at a basin, brushes his teeth, and is ready for the night. He blows out the candle; then it is time to get up apain. He gets up, goes through a few physical exercises, dresses, and rides off the stage on a tricycle, himself leading the applause by clapping his hands as he rides out.

How lias he been trained to do it all? you ask; and you are told that "Consul" has never, in the ordinary sense, been trained at all. Ho has simply lived with a family of human beings since he was nine months old, and he just' does what he has seen those around him do. He always sleeps in his own bed, like a human child. He has a bath every morning, and ,like a child, he hates coming out of the water. He dresses himself: he I even mends his own underclothing, threading his own needle; lie can also use a sewing machine. He sits up for breakfast, and eats anything that is going,—an egg, perhaps. He began to smoke when he was about two years old; he is now seven, and he smokes twenty-four cigarettes in a day. He has tea and coffee for breakfast; for lunch he generally has claret-and-water, or drinks made from fruits. But he will also finish a bottle of Bass; and his rule is a little whisky before going to bed. He lias learnt to write his own name, though- it is rather a slow business; it takes him nearly a minute. But he writer extremely carefully, and always forms his letters in precisely the same way. He inavriably makes an "o," for instance, as as if the botton of the letter were a "v," like a boy's kite. This accomplishment enables him to sign his own cheques; and the manager of the bank where he'has his ac r count says that his signature is far more regular and uniform than that of most of his human customers. But singing cheques is as far as he gets in writing. He cannot write with_ a typewriter; he manages the machine and the paper all right, but he fills his page with letters jotted down anyhow. Still, he has learnt the six keys that make his name, and when ,he has filled his page he never takes the paper from the machine until he has signed 'CONSUL' in capital letters in the right-hand bottom corner. As to his general disposition, he is a very good-tempered ape. He has always been very affectionate, and likes to have" notice taken of him. But he does not like children very much; he is a little jealous of them, though if nobody takes any notice of the children, he tolerates them. He is sometimes fractious, like a child; he has never bitten his manager, Mr Hilliard, nor his valet, but he did once bite his valet's wife—not severely. It is fortunate, perhaps, that his temper is as good as it is, for his owner reckons that, although he is a comparatively small ape, he has the strength of two men. To strangers he is quite polite and friendly; "he likes you to take notice of him," you are told, "and would kiss you if you asked him just as he kisses his valet when he goes to bed. But if you showed him that you disliked him, he would be contemptuous, and take no further notice of you. If you were afraid of him, he would know at once." That is easily believed. It is more difficult to decide whether it is natural that "Consul" should have pets like a man; he has a fox-terrier and a cat, which he is very fond of, and pats frequently. You wonder what the animals think .of it—or, rather, the other animals. Is the intelligence of apes capable of being developed to reach a higher level than has been reached by such an ape as "Consul"? Mr Hilliard, "Consul's" manager, believes that it is. He believes that if you could get a succession of chimpanzees—father, son, grandson, and so on—living with a hitman family, the resemblance to humanity would grow with every step in the succession. Possibly even physical differences would disappear. The need for the distance between the thumb and the digits would vanish with the ending of the necessity of

climbing trees, and the ape's hand, perhaps, would become gradually nearer a human hand. But the answer is invariably the same. Chimpanzees will not breed in captivity; no chimpanzees are born except in the deep wild of equatorial Africa. Each captive, brought to share his life with human beings, begins always as a wild ape among men.