A man who trains monkeys to act in plays
used to purchase common kinds from the Zoological Society at the price
of five pounds for each; but he offered to give double the price if he
might keep three or four of them for a few days in order to select one.
When asked how he could possibly learn so soon whether a particular
monkey would turn out a good actor, he answered that it all depended on
their power of attention. If when he was talking and explaining anything
to a monkey its attention was easily distracted, as by a fly on the
wall or other trifling object, the case was hopeless. If he tried by
punishment to make an inattentive monkey act, it turned sulky. On the
other hand, a monkey which carefully attended to him could always be
trained.
It is almost superfluous to state that animals have excellent _memories_
for persons and places. A baboon at the Cape of Good Hope, as I have
been informed by Sir Andrew Smith, recognised him with joy after an
absence of nine months. I had a dog who was savage and averse to all
strangers, and I purposely tried his memory after an absence of five
years and two days.
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