The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-05-07
Life In Cage In The Jungles OF Africa.
TFrom Harper's Young People.1

ocCEoIdTy VI Ob@oOs
Life In Cage In The Jungles OF Africa.
[From Harper's Young People.7
have no doubt that most of my young
readers have heard from time to time of
my efforts to master the speech Of mon
keys, which I began some years ago.
You will remember how I took the pho
nograph from one geological garden to
another, recording and repeating the
sounds made by these funny little Great
ures, but the difficulties I had to encoun-
ter were many and great. Good speci-
mems for this study are rarely found in
captivity, and when they are found their
surroundings are such as to make the
labor very much greater. The changed
conditions and very strange surroundings
of captivity have the effect of modifying,
in measure, the results of such re-
search. for under such conditions mon
keys are taught to do some things which
are not natural to them, and other things
which they would do in their wild state
they omit under these conditions, and it
is reasonable to believe that some words
or sounds which they would make in
their native element are never learned
or developed in captivity.
From my studies, however, under such
conditions, was convinced that there
was a difference of capacity, in different
species of the race, and it was only nat
ural and logical to infer that those spe-
cies which were physically and mentally
the nearest approach to man must be al
lied in like degree in language, hence
I believed that the gorilla and chimpan-
zee would prove to have the highest
type of speech of any animal below man.
The gorilla does not live in captivity I'M
der the most favorable conditions so far
afforded him, and hence the impossible
ty of studying him at all except in his
native wilds. Chimpanzees are also ex-
ceedingly rare in captivity, and when
found are SO situated as to make care
full study of them a waste of time. In
view of these facts and others, de-
termined to 90 into the land where these
animals could be found in state of ma
ture. You doubtless know that the gor-
lila is found in only one part of the world,
and that is in that section of Africa near
the equator on the west side of the con-
tinent. and even there is confined to
small space. The chimpanzee is much
more widely distributed, but, SO far as l
have found, the best and most intelligent
specimens of his tribe are found just
south of the gorilla country. You must
not understand, however, from this re-
mark that no chimpanzees live in the
country where the garilla is found, but
it is not 80 common to find them occupy
ing the same IMMEDIATE vicinity. The
land of the gorilla abounds with other
animals more or less ferocious, such as
the elephant, leopard, bnsh-cat. dingo,
and various smaller animals, besides the
Demonstration and many other serpents.
Such being the case, you can readily
see the danger that one would be expos
ed to in living alone for weeks in the
deep forest. but as such life is necessa-
nv in order to learn the domestic secrets
Of these animals, conceived the idea
of erecting a strong cage in their midst,
and in order to avoid attracting their
attention or causing them any alarm the
cage was made as nearly invisible as pos
sible. This cage has been SO frequently
described that / shall omit here any de-
tails concerning it, except enough to con-
meet the two parts of my story. 1t con-
sisted of twenty-four separate panels of
steel wire woven into screen, with inch
and-a-half mesh, and framed in strong
iron frames. Each panel was three feet
three inches square, and provided with
twelve half-hinges, three on each side,
which would readily fit to any side of
another panel. Being separate panels,
the whole was quite portable, and with
the aid of number of rods used for
hinge bolts it was the work of only a few
minutes to erect cage six and half
feet square. which gave me sufficient
room for all purposes.
Having reached my destination on the
oaoa+ f,toa which was UahOop T