The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal ObservationsHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Science
The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Animal behavior
I think that the principle of determining the mind of a wild
animal _along the lines of the professor_ is not the best
way. It should be developed _along the natural lines of the
wild-animal mind._ It should be stimulated to do what it feels
most inclined to do, and educated to achieve real mental progress.
I think that the ideal way to study the minds of apes, baboons and
monkeys would be to choose a good location in a tropical or sub-
tropical climate that is neither too wet nor too dry, enclose an
area of five acres with an unclimbable fence, and divide it into
as many corrals as there are species to be experimented upon. Each
corral would need a shelter house and indoor playroom. The stage
properties should be varied and abundant, and designed to
stimulate curiosity as well as activity.
Somewhere in the program I would try to teach orang-utans and
chimpanzees the properties of fire, and how to make and tend
fires. I would try to teach them the seed-planting idea, and the
meaning of seedtime and harvest. I would teach sanitation and
cleanliness of habit,--a thing much more easily done than most
persons suppose. I would teach my apes to wash dishes and to cook,
and I am sure that some of them would do no worse than some human
members of the profession who now receive $50 per month, or more,
for spoiling food.
In one corral I would mix up a chimpanzee, an orang-utan, a golden
baboon and a good-tempered rhesus monkey. My apes would begin at
two years old, because after seven or eight years of age all apes
are difficult, or even impossible, as subjects for peaceful
experimentation.
I would try to teach a chimpanzee the difference between a noise
and music, between heat and cold, between good food and bad food.
Any trainer can teach an animal the difference between the
blessings of peace and the horrors of war, or in other words,
obedience and good temper versus cussedness and punishment.
Dr. Yerkes' laboratory in Montecito, California, and his
experiments there with an orang-utan and other primates, were in a
good place, and made a good beginning. It is very much to be hoped
that means will be provided by which his work can be prosecuted
indefinitely, and under the most perfect conditions that money can
provide.
I hope that I will live long enough to see Dr. Yerkes develop the
mind of a young grizzly bear in a four-acre lot, to the utmost
limits of that keen and sagacious personality.
II
WILD ANIMAL TEMPERAMENT AND INDIVIDUALITY
In man and in vertebrate animals generally, temperament is the
foundation of intelligence and progress. Fifty years ago Fowler
and Wells, the founders of the science of phrenology and
physiognomy, very wisely differentiated and defined four
"temperaments" of mankind. The six types now recognized by me are
the _morose, lymphatic, sanguine, nervous, hysterical_ and
_combative_; and their names adequately describe them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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