Читать книгу The Speech of Monkeys - R. L. Garner - Страница 7

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Monkeys have favourite Colours—Can distinguish Numbers and Quantity—Music and Art very limited.

MONKEYS HAVE FAVOURITE COLOURS

In order to ascertain whether monkeys have any choice of colours or not, I selected some bright candies, balls, marbles, bits of ribbon, &c. I took a piece of pasteboard, and on it placed a few bright-coloured bits of candy, which I offered to a monkey and watched to see whether he would select a certain colour or not. In this experiment I generally used two colours at a time, and changed their places from time to time in order to determine whether he selected the colour by design or accident. After having determined which of two colours he preferred, I substituted a third colour for the one which he cared least for, and continued thus until I exhausted the list of bright colours. By changing the arrangement of the objects a great number of times, it could be ascertained with comparative certainty whether the colour was his preference or not. I find that all monkeys do not select the same colour, nor does the same monkey invariably select the same colour at different times; but I think, as a rule, that bright green is a favourite colour with the Capuchin, and their second choice is white. In a few cases, white seemed to be their preference. I have sometimes used paper wads of various colours, or bits of candy of the same flavour rolled in various coloured papers. They seemed to choose the same colours in selecting their toys. I have sometimes used artificial flowers, and find, as a rule, that they will select a flower having many green leaves about it. It may be that they associate this colour with some green food which they are fond of, and consequently that they are influenced by this in selecting other things. I kept a cup for a monkey to drink milk from, on the sides of which were some brilliant flowers and green leaves, and she would frequently quit drinking the milk to play with the flowers on the cup, and seemed never able to understand why she could not get hold of them. In one test I had a board about two feet long, and laid a few pieces of white and pink candies in four places on it. The monkey took the white from each pile before touching the pink, except in one instance it took the pink piece from one pile. I repeated this test many times. In another test I took a white paper ball in one hand and a pink one in the other, and held out my hands to the monkey, who selected the white one nearly every time, although I changed hands with the balls from time to time. These experiments were mostly confined to the Cebus monkeys, but a few of them were made with Macaques. They seem to be attracted generally by all brilliant colours, but when reduced to a choice between two, such seems to be their tastes.

CAN DISTINGUISH NUMBERS

In my efforts to ascertain their mathematical skill, I would take in one hand a little platter containing one nut, or one small bit of something to eat, such as a piece of apple or carrot cut into a small cube. In the other hand I held a small platter, with two or three such articles of the same size and colour, and holding them just out of reach of the monkey and changing them from hand to hand, I observed that the monkey would try to reach the one containing the greater number. He readily discerned which platter contained one and which contained two or three pieces. I was long in doubt whether he distinguished by number or by quantity, and my belief was that it was by quantity only. I first determined that he could tell singular from plural, by making the one piece larger and sometimes of a different shape, and from his choice of these I quite satisfied my own mind that he could distinguish by number. THE TEST WITH MARBLESI next set out to find how far in numerals his acquirements reached, and after a great number of indecisive trials I fell upon this simple plan: I took a little square wooden box and made a hole in one side just large enough for the monkey to withdraw his hand with a marble in it. I took three marbles of the same size and colour, and gave them to the monkey to play with. After a time I put the marbles in a box and allowed him to take them out, which he could do by taking out only one at a time. I repeated this several times, so as to impress his mind with the number of marbles in the box. I then concealed one of the marbles and returned two to the box. On taking them out, he evidently missed the absent one, felt in the box, arose, and looked around where he had been sitting. Then he would put his hand into the box again and look at me; but failing to find it, he became reconciled, and began to play with the two. When he had become content with the two, I abstracted one of them, and when he failed to find it he began to search for it, and seemed quite unwilling to proceed without it. He would put the one back into the box and take it out again, as if in hope that it might find the other. I helped him to look for the missing marbles, and, of course, soon found them. When he learned that I could find the lost marbles, he would appeal to me as soon as he missed them, and in several instances he would take his little black fingers and open my lips to see if I had concealed them in my mouth, the place where all monkeys conceal what they wish to keep in safety from other monkeys, who never venture to put their fingers into one another's mouth, and when any article is once lodged in a monkey's mouth it is safe from the reach of all the tribe. I repeated this until I felt quite sure of the ability of my subject to count three, and I then increased the number of marbles to four. When I would abstract one of them, sometimes he seemed to miss it, or at least to be in doubt, but would soon proceed with his play and not worry himself about it; yet he rarely failed to show that he was aware that something was wrong. Whether he missed one from four, or only acted on general principles, I do not know; but that he missed one from three was quite evident.

I may here add that there is a great difference in different specimens, and their tastes vary like those of human beings. The same idea is much clearer to some monkeys than it is to others, and a choice of colours much more definite; but I think that all of them assign to different numbers a difference of value. Some are talkative and others taciturn. I think I may state with safety that the Cebus is the most intelligent and talkative of all the monkeys I have known; that the Old World monkeys, as a group, are more taciturn and less intelligent than the New World monkeys, but I do not mean to include the anthropoid apes in this remark.