Читать книгу The Speech of Monkeys - Garner Richard Lynch - Страница 7

Dago Talks about the Weather – Tells me of his Troubles – Dodo in the "Balcony Scene" – Her Portrait by a great Artist.

On one of my visits to Chicago, in the autumn of 1890, I went to pay my respects to Dago, the little brown monkey in Lincoln Park. He had been sick for a while, and had not fully recovered, although he was able to receive visitors, and his appetite for pea-nuts was fairly well restored. On the morning of which I speak, it was dark and stormy. A fierce wind and terrible rain prevailed from the north-west. I went to the building just after daylight, in order to be alone with the monkey, and when I entered the house, Frenchie, the head-keeper, told me how very sick little Dago had been since I had left him on the day before. I approached the cage and began to caress him, to which he replied in low whimpering tones, as though he understood the nature of what I was saying to him. Presently he raised himself erect upon his hind feet, and placing his hands on his side, pressed and rubbed it as though he was in great pain, and uttered some sounds in a low, piping voice. The sound itself was pathetic, and when accented by his gestures, it was really very touching. DAGO AND THE WEATHER At this juncture, a hard gust of wind and rain dashed against the window near his cage, whereupon the little monk turned away from me, ran to the window and looked out, and uttered a sound quite different from the ones he had just been delivering to me. Still standing erect, he appeared deeply interested, and stood for a few moments at the window, during which time he would turn his head towards me and utter this sound. That the sound he uttered was addressed to me could not be doubted, and his manner in doing so was very human-like. Then returning to me, still standing erect, he would renew this plaintive speech in the most earnest manner, and continue it until another gust would call him to the window. I observed that each time he went to the window he uttered the same sound, as well as I could detect by ear, and would stand for some time watching out of the window, and occasionally turn his head and repeat this sound to me. When returning to me again, he would resume his sad story, whatever it was. I secured a good record of that part of his speech which was made when near me at the front of the cage, but the remarks made while at the window were not so well recorded, yet they were audible, and I reproduced them on the phonograph at a subsequent visit. My opinion was that the sound he uttered while at the window must allude in some way to the state of the weather, and this opinion was confirmed by the fact that on a later occasion, when I repeated the record to him, the weather was fair; but when the machine repeated those sounds which he had uttered at the window on the day of the storm, it would cause him to turn away and look out of the window; while at the other part of the record he evinced but little interest, and, in fact, seemed rather to avoid the phonograph as though the sounds suggested something which he disliked. I am quite sure that the remarks which he made to me at the front of the cage were a complaint of some kind, and, from its intonation and the manner in which it was delivered, I believed that it was an expression of pain. It occurred to me that the state of the weather might have something to do with his feelings, and that he was conscious of this fact, and desired to inform me of it.