" HANDS " AT THE "ZOO."
TN the light and comfortable new palace for the anthropoid
apes at the " Zoo " the inmates live a life of luxury and leisured ease such as has never fallen to the lot of apes since the days when Hanno the Carthaginian first encountered the gorillas. The greater number of the inmates are blameless chimpanzees, who live there the ideal or contemplative life, surrounded by those "external goods" without which, as Aristotle remarks, it is very difficult to maintain the highest standard of intellectual calm. These chimpanzees are not in the least lowered in character by living like gentlemen, with a man to wait on them, spacious apartments, furniture de- signed on the most careful lines to secure simian ease, and other examples of the "minor arts," including a parquet floor, which, in the words of an aesthetic advertisement of the past, "conduce to the leading of a dignified and happy life." They are neither unduly elated nor self-indulgent. On the contrary, they exhibit a dignified and mild appreciation of the situation, Ana endeavour to show the London crowd which gazes on them the real value of leisure, and what the natural life in the golden age was before hurry was invented, and when no natural catastrophe of any kind had interrupted their felicity. The same philosophic appreciation is shown by the two quite young chimpanzees as by the grown-up ape of the same race next to them. Observing their deliberate movements, their grave contentment, their absence of hurry, it is impossible also not to form a theory as to their immense moral and physical superiority, looking only to the ends of life, over man. Charles Lamb has divided mankind into the superior class which borrows, and the inferior class which lends. In every part of the physique of these grave and equable apes one detects something of their semi-moral superiority over man. They are framed not to make, but to take ; not to toil, but to receive. Their organs for walking and for working have become absolutely atrophied ; but in place of legs to carry burdens and fingers to dig or to oil motors with, they have no less than four pairs of hands, all meant for receiving, not for contriving. Their arms and legs are elongated, — partly, maybe, to aid them in their journeys across the forest top, but mainly employed in their leisure life to widen the range at which their hands may take the offerings of their inferior, man. It is quite obvious that this was intended by Nature. They need no teaching. They accept the situation. From the demeanour of the younger apes it is clear that they were born "in the purple." They fill the position at once, and without instruction. Its grandeur causes them no more misgiving than the luxury of a palace would the youthful sons of a Sultan. One of the tokens that good fortune is deserved is when the possessor knows how to use it, as these young chim- panzees do. They seldom sit down,—indeed, Nature has evidently not intended that they should. It is at beat but half-and-half repose. They lie on their backs—on rugs. When they wish to move they despise walking ; they push themselves gently along on their sides by the aid of their knuckles and elbows; and when a beautifully bright tin of milk or of fruit is respectfully set beside their couch, they stretch out a leg, not an arm, and with the hand at the end of it gently draw it near them. Too indolent to raise their heads to see what the contents are, they lazily shake the pan backwards and forwards till the milk spills over the edge. Then, if their casual glance suggests that it is good, they reach out an arm to save the leg further trouble, and bring it slowly to their lips.
The number of animals, other than apes, which use their paws as hands, and fairly efficient hands too, is large. Only the best developed can be turned to as many uses as the human hand; but some have the organ so developed as to be even better adapted for certain purposes. Perhaps the most extraordinary fingers are those of the aye-aye. They are very long and very thin, and the centre finger appears as if atrophied or "degenerating." The cause of these very long fingers has been ingeniously conjectured. Supposing that children could only obtain food by extracting it from the bottoms of very narrow bottles with their fore-fingers, it is clear that the 'children with the longest fore-fingers would be the best nourished. In time the race would naturally grow very long fore-fingers indeed, and probably the other fingers, though not so much used, might grow long too, though those not in actual use might be thin and weak. Applying this to the aye-aye, it is conjectured that the animal derives part of its food by picking wood-boring caterpillars from their holes, and that these long fingers have gradually developed in order to enable it to get deeper down the tunnels of the wood- grubs.
A great number of the rodents use their fore-feet as hands, with great success. The beavers mainly employ theirs in making mud-pies, and as trowels for smearing mud over their lodges and dams. They carry the mud in their mouths, which take the place of a mason's hod, and squeeze it into the cracks and smear it with the hands. Common otters, unlike the ferrets and polecats, which use their fore-feet only to scratch and dig, are very neat in the employment of their paws. They use them somewhat as a dairymaid uses the wooden im- plements known as "Dutch hands" to transfer gloves of butter to a dish. When the otter comes out of the water with a fish in its mouth, it holds it lengthways between the paws, which are held flat, with the "thumbs," or, rather, the toes corresponding to the thumbs, uppermost, and then eats
it- in a. rather untidy way. The little Indian otters at the "Zoo" have nails on their paws, which 'much resemble hands. They pick up objects and carry them in a curious , way. One of these otters will pick up a piece of biscuit lying on the floor in its right hand, .tuck• it against its body, as a Rugby player does a football, and then run on three legs to the water. Squirrels hold any object of food in their paws, but usually pick it up with their mouth before doing so. The race of Australian opossums called phalangers have a very remarkable band. The four fingers have claws at the end, but there is also a good strong thumb, which has no claw, and is capable to some extent of being " opposed " to the fingers like a man's or an Old World monkey's. The result is that these very pretty and amusing animals, many of which are as large as a cat, and with much .deeper and softer fur, combine the "handiness" of a monkey with a beauty all their own. Thus one of these "opossums," to , use the popular name, will sit up like a pink-nosed miniature bear, and holding the stem of a spoon in one hand and the tip in the other, will eat jam from it with great neatness and propriety. It will also pick up a wine-glass and drink from it, or tip up a tumbler to the comfortable angle for lapping up its contents. We have noticed one of these very attractive little pets set down a wine-glass very care- fully, but it always threw away the spoon when it bad eaten the contents.
The kinkajou has a most beautiful little pair of hands, with short and pliable fingers, nor are the bind-feet much less hand: like than the fore-paws. With the former it holds any object given to it, and with the latter it hauls on its own tail when banging downwards, as if to ease the strain. Kangaroos use their hands very readily to hold food in, and to put it to their months. As their fore-legs are so short that they have to browse in a stooping position, they seem pleased when able to secure a large bunch of cabbage or other vegetable provender, and to hold it in their hands to eat. Sometimes the young kivagaroo, looking out of the pouch, catches one or two of the leaves 'which the old 'one drops, and the pair may be seen each nibbling at the salad held in their hands, one, so to speak," one floor" above the other.' In "Alice in Wonderland" the lizard is always making notes on a slate, and then trying to rub them out again with his fingers. Many lizards' feet are se like bands that it is rather surprising that they are only used for running and climbing. But that is the main purpose to which lizards apply them. The slow, deliberate clasping and unclasping of a chameleon's feet look like the movements which the hands of a sleep-walker might make were he trying to creep down the banisters. The chameleon's are almost deformed hands ; yet they have a certain superficial resem- blance to the feet of the parrots, which more than other birds use the foot for many of the purposes of a hand when feeding. The parrot carries food up to its mouth with its foot, instead of using it merely as a " fork " to hold the food in place while it cuts it up with its bill. Yet the parrot's foot is not at all like a hand. On the contrary, it has two toes reaching forwards and two backwards. Owls have something of the . same habit. An eagle owl may sometimes be seen to carry its food to its mouth in its claws, and when it has made an unsuccessful attempt to swallow• the object (in this case a young duckling), to pull it out again in the same way. A little owl has been seen trying to swallow a cockroach conveyed to its beak in this manner.
- To see many of the smaller rodents, ground-squirrels, prairie-dogs, and marmots, hold their food, usually in both pays, is to learn a lesson in the dexterous use of hands without thumbs. Rats and mice do not as a rule "clinch" what they - hold, but merely support it in their paws, the movements being much less human than they appear. Nothing more readily Suggests the momentary impression that a pretty little monkey is remotely " a man and a brother" than when he stretches Out his -neat little palm, fingers, and thumb, and with all the movements proper to the civilised mode of greeting, insists on Shaking bands ! But no one feels in the least inclined to grasp the clawed digits of any of the rodents which use their paws to hold food. They are only "holders," not hands.
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