The Speech of Monkeys

He traced the sounds, however, to the horn from which they came, and, failing to find his mate, thrust his arm into the horn quite up to his shoulder, then withdrew it, and peeped into it again and again. The expressions of his face were indeed a study. I then secured a few sounds of his voice and delivered them to the female, who showed some signs of interest, but the record was very imperfect and her manner seemed quite indifferent. In this experiment, for the first time in the history of language, was the Simian speech reduced to record; and while the results were not fully up to my hopes, they served to inspire me to further efforts to find the fountain-head from which flows out the great river of human speech. Having satisfied myself that each one recognised the sound made by the other when delivered through the phonograph, I felt rewarded for my labour and assured of the possibility of learning the language of monkeys. The faith of others was strengthened also, and while this experiment was very crude and imperfect, it served to convince me that my opinions were correct as to the speech of these animals. [Sidenote: RECORDS OF SOUNDS]