Tommy greatly excelled the human infant, and,
indeed, for that matter, many grown individuals.
ee It is more particularly in interpreting
your wishes and intentions from your looks, tones,
and gestures, that this animal exhibited the most
wonderful quickness of apprehension, vastly superior, indeed, to that of ordinary man, and only
equalled by what we observe in deaf and dumb
people, whose defect of speech is compensated by
this unusual acuteness of observation. We have
seen Tommy, on one occasion, when commanded
by his keeper to bring him the core of an apple
which he had thrown down on the floor of his
cage, manifest the greatest anxiety to obey, though
much perplexed to discover what it was he was
required to do, as he evidently did not comprehend the nature of the order. He moved towards
the window, stopped and looked back at the
keeper, and then at the company ; perceiving by
their looks that he was mistaken, he returned, put
his hand upon his swing as if to mount, again
looked round to see if he was right, and was manifestly much puzzled what to do; at length one of
the spectators pointed to the core of the apple; he stretched his hand towards it, looked inquiringly
at the keeper, hesitated for a moment till he received the expected nod of approbation, and
then lifted and carried it to his attendant without farther hesitation.”[1]
Genus Piruzcus. (Geoff.)
Considerably less man-like in many of its characters than the preceding genus, the Orang is
- ↑ Lib. Ent. Kn. "Menageries," i, 65.
