The Speech of Monkeys

[Sidenote: JAVA MONKEYS] Among the Java monkeys are several varieties which make very good pets. They show a fair degree of intelligence and docility, and are not generally very vicious. I have not succeeded in making any very good records of these monkeys, although I have observed, without the aid of the phonograph, that they have one or two very distinct and well-marked sounds. I have not up to this time attempted to differentiate their sounds, but in a general way have interpreted the meanings of one or two groups of them, especially those of a friendly character. I may with propriety remark here, that in all the different tongues of monkeys there appear to be certain words which are much more significant, of a much better phonetic type, than the others, and occur much more frequently among their sounds. This appears to be true of the speech or sounds of all the lower animals. [Sidenote: MONKEYS RECOGNISE BY SIGHT] In a former chapter I have described the happy little family in Central Park, which consisted of the five little brown cousins, only a few months ago; but death has reduced their number to two. In this connection I shall mention a very important fact concerning the use of the natural senses of these animals. I have several times been assured that monkeys depended more upon their sense of smell than upon that of sight as a means of recognition, and that in this respect they were very much like the canines. I have made frequent tests of the power of their senses, and am prepared to say with certainty that such is not the case. When I visit the Park, I frequently enter at Sixty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, at which place there is a flight of stairs leading from the street down to a large plazza in front of the Old Armoury; and something more than a hundred feet from the foot of the stairway, and nearly at right angles to it, is a window opening into the monkey-house by the cage occupied by these particular monkeys. When I descend the stairway and come within view of this window, they frequently see me as I reach the plazza, and the keeper always knows of my approach by the conduct of the monkeys, who recognise me the instant I come in sight at that distance.