LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 195

Finally, Sir William Hoste is referred to as having recorded

that "one of his officers coming home after a long day's

shooting, saw a female monkey running along the rocks with

her young one in her arms. He immediately fired and the

animal fell. On his coming up she grasped her little one

close to her breast, and with her other hand pointed to the

wound which the ball had made, and which had entered

above her breast. Dipping her finger in the blood and

holding it up, she seemed to reproach him with having been

the cause of her pain, and also that of the young one, to

which she frequently pointed."

Now, that these narratives repose on a basis of truth is

not to be doubted, neither is the perfect good faith of the

narrators to be suspected. That the mother ape hugged her

young one, that the wounded animals made gestures due to

anger, pain, terror, or distress, is not to be questioned. But

it is only too evident that the kind-hearted sportsmen read

into such movements, motives and meanings due to their

own fertile imaginations. Such mistaken inferences are not

to be wondered at on the part of military men, who may well

have been unskilled in scientific observation, and little read

in either psychology or philosophy.

But a very curious tale is told by Mr. Romanes himself

with respect to an American monkey of his, which had

found out the way to unscrew the handle of that object

which is often so much too easily unscrewed, namely, a

hearth-brush. He delighted in screwing it on and off, and

soon began to unscrew all the unscrewable articles so as to

become a nuisance to the household. This showed that the

monkey, we are told,* had "discovered the mechanical

principle of the screw " an " intelligent recognition of a

principle discovered by the most unwearying perseverance in

the way of experiment "(!). But to do what this monkey

Op. tit., p. 61.

Finally, Sir William Hoste is referred to as having recorded

that "one of his officers coming home after a long day's

shooting, saw a female monkey running along the rocks with

her young one in her arms. He immediately fired and the

animal fell. On his coming up she grasped her little one

close to her breast, and with her other hand pointed to the

wound which the ball had made, and which had entered

above her breast. Dipping her finger in the blood and

holding it up, she seemed to reproach him with having been

the cause of her pain, and also that of the young one, to

which she frequently pointed."

Now, that these narratives repose on a basis of truth is

not to be doubted, neither is the perfect good faith of the

narrators to be suspected. That the mother ape hugged her

young one, that the wounded animals made gestures due to

anger, pain, terror, or distress, is not to be questioned. But

it is only too evident that the kind-hearted sportsmen read

into such movements, motives and meanings due to their

own fertile imaginations. Such mistaken inferences are not

to be wondered at on the part of military men, who may well

have been unskilled in scientific observation, and little read

in either psychology or philosophy.

But a very curious tale is told by Mr. Romanes himself

with respect to an American monkey of his, which had

found out the way to unscrew the handle of that object

which is often so much too easily unscrewed, namely, a

hearth-brush. He delighted in screwing it on and off, and

soon began to unscrew all the unscrewable articles so as to

become a nuisance to the household. This showed that the

monkey, we are told,* had "discovered the mechanical

principle of the screw " an " intelligent recognition of a

principle discovered by the most unwearying perseverance in

the way of experiment "(!). But to do what this monkey

Op. tit., p. 61.