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

The orang-utan is sanguine, optimistic and cheerful, a good boarder, affectionate toward his keepers, and friendly toward strangers. He eats well, enjoys life, lives long, and is well liked by everybody. Except when quite young, the chimpanzee is either nervous or hysterical. After six years of age it is irritable and difficult to manage. After seven years of age (puberty) it is rough, domineering and dangerous. The male is given to shouting, yelling, shrieking and roaring, and when quite angry rages like a demon. I know of no wild animal that is more dangerous per pound than a male chimpanzee over eight years of age. When young they do wonders in trained performances, but when they reach maturity, grow big of arm and shoulder, and masterfully strong, they quickly become conscious of their strength. It is then that performing chimpanzees become unruly, fly into sudden fits of temper, their back hair bristles up, they stamp violently, and sometimes leap into a terrorized orchestra. Next in order, they are retired willy-nilly from the stage, and are offered for sale to zoological parks and gardens having facilities for confinement and control. The baboons are characteristically fierce and aggressive, and in a wild state they live in troops, or even in herds of hundreds. Being armed with powerful canine teeth and wolf-like jaws, they are formidable antagonists, and other animals do not dare to attack them. It is because of their natural weapons, their readiness to fight like fiends, and their combined agility and strength that the baboons have been able to live on the ground and survive and flourish in lands literally reeking with lions, leopards, hyenas and wild dogs. The awful canine teeth of an old male baboon are quite as dangerous as those of any leopard, and even the leopard's onslaught is less to be feared than the wild rage of an adult baboon. In the Transvaal and Rhodesia, it is a common occurrence for an ambitious dog to go after a troop of baboons and never return.