PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 177

was the fact that a chimpanzee, known as Sally, and which

lived a long time at the Zoological Gardens, was in the

habit of picking up the exact number of straws she was

told to pick up by her keeper. She would pick up separately

from the ground, place in her mouth, and then present to

him in one bunch, two, three, four, five, and, we believe,

ultimately, ten straws, as she was told. She had distinctly

associated the several sounds of these numbers with corre-

sponding groups of picked-up straws. The ape would also,

on command, pass a straw through a large or a small hole

in the fastening of its cage, or through a particular inter-

space of its wire-netting. It would also put objects into

its keeper's pocket, play various odd tricks with boy visitors,

howl horribly when told to sing, and hold on its head

pieces of apple, remaining perfectly quiescent till some

particular word was said. This last trick, however, is one

of the commonest performed by pet dogs, and the putting

of objects into the keeper's pocket was nothing remarkable.

The passing of a straw through a special aperture on com-

mand would have been more so but for the fact that the

basis of the whole superstructure of such tricks was laid

by the animal itself having spontaneously taken to the

trick of picking up a straw and passing it through a small

hole near the keyhole of the door of the cage possibly

as a result of having seen a key put in and out of the

keyhole. Having thus itself acquired a habit of picking

up straws and passing them through a hole, there could

be little difficulty in getting it to pass the straw through

other holes, and not much in getting it to pick up more

straws than one. That it should have associated certain

motions with the sound of certain words is no more than

dogs, pigs, and various other animals lower in the scale

will accomplish.

There remains, then, as the single distinguishing pecu-

was the fact that a chimpanzee, known as Sally, and which

lived a long time at the Zoological Gardens, was in the

habit of picking up the exact number of straws she was

told to pick up by her keeper. She would pick up separately

from the ground, place in her mouth, and then present to

him in one bunch, two, three, four, five, and, we believe,

ultimately, ten straws, as she was told. She had distinctly

associated the several sounds of these numbers with corre-

sponding groups of picked-up straws. The ape would also,

on command, pass a straw through a large or a small hole

in the fastening of its cage, or through a particular inter-

space of its wire-netting. It would also put objects into

its keeper's pocket, play various odd tricks with boy visitors,

howl horribly when told to sing, and hold on its head

pieces of apple, remaining perfectly quiescent till some

particular word was said. This last trick, however, is one

of the commonest performed by pet dogs, and the putting

of objects into the keeper's pocket was nothing remarkable.

The passing of a straw through a special aperture on com-

mand would have been more so but for the fact that the

basis of the whole superstructure of such tricks was laid

by the animal itself having spontaneously taken to the

trick of picking up a straw and passing it through a small

hole near the keyhole of the door of the cage possibly

as a result of having seen a key put in and out of the

keyhole. Having thus itself acquired a habit of picking

up straws and passing them through a hole, there could

be little difficulty in getting it to pass the straw through

other holes, and not much in getting it to pick up more

straws than one. That it should have associated certain

motions with the sound of certain words is no more than

dogs, pigs, and various other animals lower in the scale

will accomplish.

There remains, then, as the single distinguishing pecu-