Do animals talk? Of course the do. Any reader of Kipling's jungle stories or of the tales of Uncle Remus knows that animals talk. And, besides other authorities who might perhaps be more convincing to the scientifically minded are firm in their belief that animals have means of oral communication serving the purpose of language. Put to reduce this language to anything like grammatical accuracy, for the inter-communication of human and other animals, is a much greater task than learning to write Chinese or translating the Bible into Choctaw.
We are told that the late Prof. Richard L, Garner, who devoted most of his life to the work of classifying the speech-sounds of monkeys, distinguished 100 simian "words" and learned the meaning of 50. In order to do this, he made 23 trips to Africa, and at one time lived for months in a cage in the heart of the jungle, his sole companion a pet chimpanzee named Moses. When he was in America his favourite laboratory was—the monkey-house in the Bronx Park Zoological Gardens, we are told by Heyden R, Sparkes in the New York tribune."" In some of his lectures Professor Garner used a phonograph with records of monkey "talk." These records were made by Dr. Raymond L. Ditniars, curator of the reptile deparunent of the New York Zoo, with the help of a Japanese macaque, which he had bought from a sailor and took home as a pet for hig daughters, he monkey was not considered fit for exhibition at the Zoo, for somewhere in his dark past he had lost an eye and suffered a mutilation of one of his hands. He was enticed into conversation in the presence of an old-style, cylinder-phonograph, and then later his own words were hurled back at him. But let Dr, Ditmars tell the tale in his own way, as sumniarized for us by the "Literary Digest"
"This little anima, has had t! run of home for some time. Wher my frighters ate getting their lessons likes to curl up beneath the rays of the light, very much s he might bask the sun. In cold weather we put a sweater on him and out he goes exploration trips that take him up the side of the house vid the water-spout or to the tops of trees, "One of his first words' that we wore able to identify wag a sharp, wailing sound. He used it invariably in calling to another monkey. Other sounds were identified in connexion with his feeding When pleased he uttered a peculiar chattering sound difficult for human lips to imitate. If he wanted more of the food which had excited him to praise or wanted some one ty contizme scratching his head he would repeat this sound, bul with greater intense "Some of his conversation was carried on in pantomime, When frightened either by soma visitor or perhaps a strange dog he would pull back his lips, baring his tooth, and utter a sharp squeak. Then, pretending indifference, he would bluff like a veteran poker-player. He would yawn apparently without pur pose. But we saw that he always yawned in this fashion when fear-stricken and we
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.