The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

Suzette was completely isolated, kept absolutely quiet, and every chance was given her to go on with the functions of motherhood. Her breasts contained plenty of milk, and the flow was due to start on the second day after the infant's arrival. Day and night the baby was jealously confined in that massive and powerful groin,--and under too much pressure! When the baby cried, and kicked, and struggled to get free, Suzette would nervously rearrange her straw bed, carefully pick from the tiny fingers every straw that they had clutched, and settle down again. If the struggle was soon renewed, Suzette would change the infant over to the other groin, and close upon it as before. Sleeping or waking, walking, sitting or lying down, she held it there. If we attempted to touch the infant, the mother instantly became savage and dangerous. Not one human finger was permitted to touch it. For hours, and for days, we anxiously watched for nursing to begin; but in vain. At last we became almost frantic from the spectacle of the infant being slowly starved to death because the mother did not realize that it needed her milk, and that she alone could promote nursing. Her mother instinct utterly failed to supply the link that alone could connect infancy to motherhood, and furnish life. Of course this failure was due to poor Suzette's artificial life, and unnatural surroundings. Had she been all alone, in the depths of a tropical forest, Nature would have proceeded along her usual lines. But in our Primate House, Suzette felt that her infant was surrounded by a host of strange enemies, from whom it must be strongly and persistently guarded and defended. That was the idea that completely dominated her mind, ruled out all human help, and blocked the main process of nature.