Apes and Monkeys: Their Life and LanguageGarner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Science
Apes and Monkeys: Their Life and Language
Garner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Apes; Monkeys; Sound production by animals; Speech
[Illustration: R. L. Garner.]
APES AND MONKEYS
_THEIR LIFE AND LANGUAGE_
BY
R. L. GARNER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
EDWARD EVERETT HALE
BOSTON, U.S.A., AND LONDON
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
The Athenæum Press
ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL
COPYRIGHT, 1900
BY GINN & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
24.12
PREFACE
This volume is the natural product of many years devoted by the author
to studying the speech and habits of monkeys. That naturally led him
up to the study of the great apes. The matter contained in this work
is chiefly a record of the tabulated facts gleaned from his special
field of research. The aim in view is to convey to the casual reader a
more correct idea than now prevails concerning the physical, mental,
and social habits of apes and monkeys and to prepare him for a wider
appreciation of animals in general.
The favorable conditions under which the writer has been placed, in the
study of these animals in the freedom of their native jungle, have not
hitherto been enjoyed by any other student of nature.
A careful aim to avoid all technical terms and scientific phraseology
has been studiously adhered to, and the subject is treated in the
simplest style consistent with its dignity. Tedious details are
relieved by an ample supply of anecdotes taken from the writer’s own
observations. Most of the acts related are those of his own pets. A
few of them are of apes in a wild state. The author has carefully
refrained from abstruse theories or rash deductions, but has sought
to place the animals here treated of in the light to which their own
conduct entitles them, allowing the reader to draw his own conclusions.
The author frankly confesses to his own belief in the psychic unity of
all animate nature. Believing in a common source of life, a common law
of living, and a common destiny for all creatures, he feels that to
dignify the apes is not to degrade man but rather to exalt him.
Believing that a more perfect knowledge of these animals will bring
man into closer fellowship and deeper sympathy with nature, and with
an abiding trust that it will widen the bounds of humanity and cause
man to realize that he and they are but common links in the one great
chain of life, the author gives this work to the world. When once man
is impressed with the consciousness that in some degree, however small,
all creatures think and feel, it will lessen his vanity and ennoble his
heart.
THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xi
CHAPTER I
Monkeys, Apes, and Men--Comparative Anatomy--Skulls--The
Law of Cranial Projection 1
CHAPTER II
Early Impression--What is Speech?--First Efforts--The Phonograph--The
First Record of Monkey Speech--Monkey Words--Phonetics--Human
Speech and Monkey Speech 12
CHAPTER III
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