Comparison of the behavior of the ape with that of the child indicates a
greater variety of ideas for the latter. Julius gauged his distances
much more accurately than the child, attended more steadily, and worked
more persistently to obtain the reward, but he did not so nearly
approach the idea of stacking the boxes as did the child, for the
latter, in placing the board on one of the boxes, exhibited in
ineffective form the idea which should have yielded the solution of the
problem.
The child was given no further opportunity to work at the problem,
whereas Julius, as I shall now describe, continued his efforts on
subsequent days under somewhat different conditions. On Wednesday, March
10, the banana was suspended as formerly, and three boxes, all of them
small and light enough to be readily handled by the ape, were placed in
distant parts of the cage. The six-foot stick which had been present in
the test with the child, but not in the first test with Julius, was also
placed in the cage.
Julius was allowed to work for about an hour. As formerly, he was
sufficiently hungry to be eager to get the food and evidently tried all
of the possible ways which occurred to him. Chief among these were (1)
the use of the various boxes separately or in pairs in very varied
positions but never with one upon another,--the only way in which the
banana could be reached; (2) climbing to various points on the sides of
the cage, with infrequent attempts to reach the banana. Usually his eyes
saved him the vain effort.
Unlike the child, Julius paid little attention to the six-foot stick.
Two or three times he took it up and seemingly reached for the banana,
but in no case did he try persistently to strike it and knock it from
the string. It is but fair, however, to remark that such an act is very
difficult for the young orang utan, as compared with the child, because
of the weakness of the legs and the awkwardness of striking from a
sitting posture. As previously, the steadiness of attention and the
persistence of effort toward the end in view were most surprising. At
one time Julius walked to the end of the cage and there happened to see
one of the monkeys eating. He watched intently a few seconds and then
hastened back to the banana as if his task had been suggested to him by
the sight of the feeding animal. Most interesting and significant in
this behavior was the suddenness with which he would turn to a new
method. It often looked precisely as though a new idea had come to him,
and he was all eagerness to try it out.
On March 11, Julius was given another opportunity to obtain the banana
by the use of the three boxes. Although he used them together he made no
effort to place one upon another. Certain of his methods are shown in
plate V, especially by figures 21, 23 and 24.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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