The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes | Page 2

concerning conditions in the Canary Islands, I received an urgent invitation from my friend and former student, Doctor G. V. Hamilton, to make use of his collection of animals and laboratory at Montecito, California, during my leave of absence from Harvard. This invitation I most gladly accepted, and in February, 1915, I established myself in Santa Barbara, in convenient proximity to Doctor Hamilton's private laboratory where for more than six months I was able to work uninterruptedly under nearly ideal conditions.
Doctor Hamilton without reserve placed at my disposal his entire collection of animals, laboratory, and equipment, provided innumerable conveniences for my work, and in addition, bore the entire expense of my investigation. I cannot adequately thank him for his kindness nor make satisfactory acknowledgment here of his generous aid. Thanks to his sympathetic interest and to the courtesy of the McCormick family on whose estate the laboratory was located, my work was done under wholly delightful conditions, and with assistance from Ramon Jimenez and Frank Van Den Bergh, Jr., which was invaluable. The former aided me most intelligently in the care of the animals and the construction of apparatus; and the latter, especially, was of very real service in connection with many of my experiments.
The collection of animals which Doctor Hamilton placed at my disposal consisted of ten monkeys and one orang utan. The monkeys represented either Pithecus rhesus Audebert (_Macacus rhesus_), Pithecus irus F. Cuvier (_Macacus cynomolgos_), or the hybrid of these two species (Elliot, 1913). There were two eunuchs, five males, and three females. All were thoroughly acclimated, having lived in Montecito either from birth or for several years. The orang utan was a young specimen of Pongo pygmaeus Hoppius obtained from a San Francisco dealer in October, 1914 for my use. His age at that time, as judged by his size and the presence of milk teeth, was not more than five years. So far as I could discover, he was a perfectly normal, healthy, and active individual. On June 10, 1915, his weight was thirty-four pounds, his height thirty-two inches, and his chest girt twenty-three inches. On August 18 of the same year, the three measurements were thirty-six and one-half pounds, thirty-three inches, and twenty-five inches.
For the major portion of my experimental work, only three of the eleven animals were used. A growing male, _P. rhesus_ monkey, known as Sobke; a mature male, _P. irus_, called Skirrl; and the young orang utan, which had been named Julius. Plates I and II present these three subjects of my experiments in characteristically interesting attitudes. In plate I, figure 1, Julius appears immediately behind the laboratory seated on a rock, against a background of live oaks. This figure gives one an excellent idea of the immediate environment of the laboratory. Figure 2 of the same plate is a portrait of Julius taken in the latter part of August. By reason of the heavy growth of hair, he appeared considerably older as well as larger at this time than when the photograph for figure 1 was taken. In plate II, figure 3, Julius is shown in the woods in the attitude of reaching for a banana, while in figure 4 of the same plate he is represented as walking upright in one of the cages.
Likenesses of Sobke are presented in figures 5 and 6 of plate II. In the latter of these figures he is shown stretching his mouth, apparently yawning but actually preparing for an attack on another monkey behind the wire screen. Figure 7 of this plate indicates Skirrl in an interesting attitude of attention and with an obvious lack of self-consciousness. The same monkey is represented again in figures 8 and 9 of plate II, this time in the act of using hammer and saw.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE II
FIGURE 3.--Orang utan, Julius, reaching for banana.
FIGURE 4.--Julius walking across his cage.
FIGURE 5.--_P. rhesus_, Sobke.
FIGURE 6.--Sobke stretching his jaws (yawn?) preparatory to a fight.
FIGURE 7.--_P. irus_, Skirrl.
FIGURE 8.--Skirrl using hammer and nail.
FIGURE 9.--Skirrl using a saw.

All of the animals except the orang utan had been used more or less for experiments on behavior by Doctor Hamilton, but this prior work in no way interfered with my own investigation. Doctor Hamilton has accumulated a large mass of the most valuable and interesting observations on the behavior of monkeys, and he more thoroughly understands them than any other observer of whom I have knowledge. Much to my regret and embarrassment in connection with the present report, he has thus far published only a small portion of his data (Hamilton, 1911, 1914). In his most recent paper on "A study of sexual tendencies in monkeys and baboons," he has given important information concerning several of the monkeys which I have observed. For the convenience of readers who may make use of both his